§ Mr. BrakeTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will introduce a deposit system for beverage containers; and if he will make a statement [59560]
§ Mr. MealeThe Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations 1997, which came into force in March 1997, place obligations on certain businesses to recover and recycle specified tonnages of packaging waste based on the amount of packaging that they handle.
The Regulations do not have particular provisions on re-use beyond the fact that producers do not have to include the tonnage of packaging they are re-using in the calculation of their obligation. Re-using packaging can therefore significantly reduce compliance costs.
There are no plans to introduce a mandatory deposit system for beverage containers in the UK. We would want to look carefully at whether such a measure would contravene European law because it would penalise producers of single trip packaging because it could be anti-competitive.
However, there is nothing to prevent businesses from introducing deposit systems themselves, and some may indeed do so to ensure that their re-use systems are as effective as possible.