Scotland’s Green Minister has announced another delay to the long-awaited bottle return scheme for drinks containers.
Lorna Slater, the Scottish Government Minister for the circular economy, announced the humiliating hold-up in the scheme in an update to Holyrood on Wednesday.
The plan, which is an SNP manifesto pledge, requires shoppers to pay an extra 20p when buying drinks in cans and bottles, with the fee being refunded when they return the empty containers for recycling.
The scheme, due to be the first in the UK, has already been delayed once by the covid pandemic and was supposed to begin in July next year.
Slater said the scheme would be running “as soon as practically possible” and that a new date would be announced “in due course” as she blamed the global pandemic and Brexit for previous delays.
Businesses which would be key to making the scheme work were still “badly affected by the pandemic and the mismanagement of Brexit”, said Slater.
She also blamed the UK Government for failing to resolve the VAT payments on the deposit returns.
Slater said: “I have written to the UK government twice but I only heard yesterday from the Treasury that they do not see a route to removing VAT from the deposits. This is deeply disappointing.”
The announcement, just days after the conclusion of the COP26 climate change summit in Glasgow, is a blow to environmental campaigners and an embarrassment to the Scottish Green Party which is in pact with the SNP government.
It has been more than four years since First Minister Nicola Sturgeon confirmed that a deposit return scheme would be introduced in Scotland.
A further delay could breach the SNP’s election manifesto, which pledged to implement “our ambitious deposit return scheme for single use drinks containers next year” to help increase recycling, reducing littering and assist with meeting climate change targets.
Scottish Labour MSP Mercedes Villalba said: “That this delay is indefinite demonstrates how low down the government’s agenda this vital legislation is.
“It’s all too clear that a combination of caving to lobbyists and a lack of political will has caused this delay.
“The SNP and the Scottish Greens are all too happy to backslide on their environmental commitments time and time again – the people of Scotland and our planet deserve better.”
John Mayhew of the Have You Got The Bottle? campaign, said: "It is deeply disappointing that Ministers have not just rebuffed industry lobbying, and are instead considering granting drinks producers yet another unjustified delay. "
"The evidence from around Europe is that a system of this sort can readily be implemented from scratch in about a year - and the Scottish scheme administrator has been in place since March."
Environmental campaigners at Greenpeace UK hit out at the “shambolic delay”.
Nina Schrank, senior plastics campaigner with the charity, said it was “embarrassing for a Government which loves to shout about its green credentials”.
She added: “They haven’t even given a clear timeline for any delay, which might even put the future of this vital scheme into doubt. Every year of delay means millions more bottles being dumped or burned.
“The deposit return scheme was a flagship environmental policy for the Scottish Government, and they’ve kicked the can down the road yet again.”
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