APRS News
This blog records the campaign against the deposit return scheme and tried to explain a bit of what happened over the last six months. Firstly for the supporters of the ‘Have you Got the Bottle?’ campaign and for APRS’s members, but also, importantly, as a heads-up for those campaigning for deposit return in England and Wales. We expect some of the same tactics to be used against the planned deposit return schemes in England and Wales and, as they say, “forewarned is forearmed”.
Action to Protect Rural Scotland has today proposed that 16th August 2023 be Scotland’s first annual National Litter Day, marking the day Scotland’s much-delayed deposit return system for cans and bottles should have finally come into effect.
Environmental campaigners reacted with deep dismay to the Scottish Government’s announcement that they intend to delay deposit return for a fourth time, to align with a UK system which has yet to be designed and agreed.
Campaigners urged the First Minister to “hold his nerve”, following Westminster’s decision to force Scotland to exclude glass from the
Today APRS and volunteers from Fife Street Champions demonstrated outside Tesco Duloch, calling on the supermarket chain to support Scotland’s upcoming deposit return scheme. The campaigners brought littered trollies filled with littered cans and bottles.
APRS and environmental NGOs from across the UK have written an open letter urging the Prime Minister to grant an exclusion to the Internal Markets Act and include glass in England’s Deposit Return Scheme.
Capturing 90% of single use glass through the deposit return scheme will allow Scotland to recycle 504 million glass bottles every year, saving more than 1.2 million tonnes of carbon emissions over the next 25 years
A group of pro-deposit return international NGOs have today written to Lorna Slater MSP, the Minister responsible for deposit return, to set out how the Scottish commitment made in 2017 helped with their campaigns, and support the rollout up to the August 16th 2023 launch date, whether systems in their countries are underway, being expanded, or scheduled to launch.
NGOS ACROSS UK WARN SECRETARY OF STATE AGAINST “LEGAL QUICKSAND” APRS media release Under embargo for 00.01, 8th March 2023
Two billion drinks containers, more than 90% of the annual total volume of eligible products, are now included in the DRS scheme. Climate campaigners say that this must end calls for another delay of the long-planned scheme.