SHOT DOWN

WESTMINSTER MEDDLING COULD PUT AN END TO RECYCLING SCHEME | As UK Government refuses to budge over DRS, Lorna Slater admits that it 'cannot go ahead' as planned

- PAUL HUTCHEON

SCOTLAND’S troubled deposit return scheme (DRS) for drinks cans and bottles “cannot go ahead” after being “shot down” by the UK Tory Government. 

Lorna Slater said yesterday that the project was doomed after Westminster refused to give the scheme the green light.

First Minister Humza Yousaf had warned it was in “grave” danger over the UK Government’s insistence glass should not be included.

He set a deadline of Monday for the UK Government to change its mind over the key issue but Tory Ministers have not budged.

Slater, the Scottish Government’s circular economy minister, told MSPs: “It is clear Scotland’s deposit return scheme, in the scope and form passed by this Parliament, cannot go ahead as currently planned.”

The Scottish Government and Circularity Scotland – the company set up to run DRS north of the Border – are looking at how to bring forward an alternative scheme.

Slater said: “The one that this Parliament passed has been shot down by Westminster.”

Under the proposed Scottish DRS scheme, consumers will pay an extra 20p deposit on the container when they purchase a drink in shops.

This would be returned when the container is handed back, either at a shop or a reverse vending machine.

The scheme, first drawn up by the Scottish Government in 2019, included glass, plastic and cans.