Chamber and committees

Setting and paying the handling fee is a matter for return-point operators and the scheme administrator, as provided for by regulation 11 of the Deposit and Return Scheme for Scotland Regulations 2020. That is in line with the principle of industry leadership of the scheme, and the Scottish Government is not involved in this process.

The cost to the regulator is estimated based on the number of businesses to be regulated; it is therefore unaffected by any increase in the number of containers.

The benefits of a Deposit Return Scheme to businesses are not only a function of container numbers. As well as reimbursement to retailers through the handling fee, the benefit to businesses includes: savings from waste uplift costs for hospitality return points, reduced operational costs for private waste management companies (relating to uplifts from hospitality customers, albeit offset by reduced income from these activities), avoided compliance costs for producers, and income to the reverse vending machine service industry, as well as potential advertising revenue.

The economic model underpinning the figures in the amended final Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment takes account of a number of factors, and costs and benefits do not necessarily increase in proportion to the change in input. In this case, the addition of 0.5bn containers increases costs through greater potential for fraudulently redeemed containers, but also increases the benefits both from more income from sale of materials and from unredeemed deposits.

The cost increases within the model are not proportional increases. There may be additional collections but there is also additional capacity within the system.

The Scottish Government is clear that deposit return schemes (DRS) are a form of extended producer responsibility (EPR). Therefore, producers will not have to purchase Packaging Waste Recycling Notes (PRNs) or Packaging Waste Export Recycling Notes (PERNs), or pay producer fees under packaging EPR once that is operational, for containers collected through our DRS. We are working with the other UK administrations to legislate to give effect to this position.

On the member’s questions regarding quantity and quality of glass collected through our DRS, I refer him to the answer to question S6W-07104, answered on 18 March 2022. Increased quantity and quality of glass cullet means more glass available to go to re-melt and we would expect Scotland’s glass industry to benefit from this economic opportunity.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .

When calculating this increase, it has been assumed that the additional return points are manual return points, which have a lower cost than those with reverse vending machines.

Zero Waste Scotland carried out an intensive data-gathering process to arrive at the figure of 17,000 which remains our best and final estimate of the number of return points, prior to implementation. Although we modelled the figure of 37,000 to provide a sensitivity analysis for the economic case for our Deposit Return Scheme (DRS), we are confident that we have identified all the larger retail sites, and if these additional return points did exist, they would overwhelmingly be manual return points. Circularity Scotland Ltd, the scheme administrator for our DRS who provided the figure of 37,000, agrees with this assessment.

The economic model underpinning the figures in the amended final Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment takes account of a number of factors and costs and benefits do not necessarily increase in proportion to the change in input.

The modelled cost increase reflects the likelihood that there will be additional capacity within the system for return points to handle additional containers and the possibility of an increase in the frequency of collection rather than requiring additional reverse vending machines (RVMs). This would lead to additional running costs and staff time but not costs for additional RVMs. The scheme administrator is responsible for setting a suitable logistics schedule with retailers at an agreed frequency for the collection of materials, aligned with the capacity of the RVM and individual store requirements.

In calculating the impact of our Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) on local authorities, the economic model in the final Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA) uses compositional data on the tonnage (‘dirty’ weights) that Local Authorities actually manage, both recycled and in the residual waste stream, rather than the number of containers placed on the market. This aligns with the (weight-related) costs local authorities actually incur.

Hence the benefit to local authorities set out in table 3 of the amended final BRIA does not change in the sensitivity analysis presented in Annex F. The amended final BRIA can be reviewed here: A Deposit Return Scheme for Scotland: Final Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA) (www.gov.scot) .

As Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and the Islands, I made the decision not to suspend the greening rules on Ecological Focus Areas relating to fallow land and field margins following the request from the NFUS. I remain clear in my commitment to supporting farmers and crofters to produce more of our food more sustainably, nevertheless we must continue to acknowledge to ensure agriculture continues to play its part in cutting emissions, mitigating climate change and restoring and enhancing nature and biodiversity.