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Scotland's Deposit Return Scheme- Amending Regulations

Letter to Convener for Lorna Slater, Minister for Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity, Scottish Government, 15 December 2021

Dear Convenor,

Scotland's Deposit Return Scheme - Amending Regulations

I am writing to confirm that I have today laid the Deposit and Return Scheme for Scotland Amendment Regulations 2022 before Parliament.  The Regulations amend the Deposit and Return Scheme for Scotland Regulations 2020 to support delivery and operation of a successful deposit return scheme (DRS) for Scotland.

The amending Regulations provide for a revised full implementation date of 16 August 2023 for our DRS.  They also make a number of provisions that respond to feedback from the public and private sectors since the original Regulations were passed in May 2020, to provide additional clarity and/or to help to de-risk implementation.  These include:

• Allowing online retailers, and others selling through a distance sale, to refuse to accept a return of a disproportionately large number of containers in a single transaction;
• Clarifying that, for products that are filled and sealed in a retail or hospitality setting, for example the kind of can known as a ‘crowler’, the person filling and sealing them will be the producer and bear responsibility for their collection;
• Providing that a producer that is a producer only by virtue of filling and sealing crowlers is exempt from the annual fee to register with SEPA, and changing this fee from £360 to £365 for eligible producers to cover the cost of regulating these additional producers;
• Creating a duty for wholesalers or others selling articles not intended for sale in Scotland to disclose at point of sale that the items are not intended for sale in Scotland and cannot be returned for a deposit, which will help to prevent fraud;
• Adjusting SEPA’s enforcement powers in line with SEPA’s existing powers in the Environment Act 1995, which will help ensure effective enforcement of DRS.

What these Regulations do not change is that our DRS will be among the most environmentally ambitious and accessible in Europe, including tens of thousands of return points for plastic, metal and glass containers, as well as pick-ups for online deliveries.

I have also today published updates to the Strategic Environmental Assessment Addendum and Business and Regulatory Impact Assessments that were published alongside the original Regulations on 16 March 2020, reflecting the changes made in these Regulations.  The Equalities Impact Assessment, Fairer Scotland Impact Assessment, and Islands Communities Impact Assessment published alongside the original Regulations remain valid and we are not amending these at this time.

I hope this is helpful and look forward to engaging further with the Committee regarding these Regulations over the coming weeks.

Kind regards

Lorna Slater