FOI Request - Financial Impact of Deposit Return

Request 101003204450

I would like to request the following information, please.

1. Please provide a copy of forecast reports showing estimated (a) savings and (b) losses resulting from the forthcoming Deposit Return Scheme.

Response 30-01-2023

1. Not held. Forecast reports showing estimated savings and losses resulting from the forthcoming Deposit Return Scheme are not held. Information that is not held falls under Section 17 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 - Information not held. However, the department sent this explanation:

Our current domestic recycling collections are based on a co-mingled collection of plastics (types 1, 2 & 5), aluminium and steel cans in one purple bin, mixed paper and card in another blue bin, and mixed glass in a reusable bag/box. We currently use twin track RCVs to collect the purple and blue bins (30% side cans/plastic, 70% side paper/card) and a separate vehicle for the glass collections. We have on average 9 domestic recycling vehicles operating each day.

The material type percentage breakdown of our cans/plastics mix is: Plastics 67%, Aluminium cans 13%, Steel cans 18%, the remaining 2% is contamination waste.

Given the Scottish Governments predicted uptake of the DRS being 60% in year 1, 75% in year 2 and 90% by year 3, this will have a serious impact on the tonnages of the materials collected from domestic properties. Based on the total tonnages for 2022 and the predicted SG uptake happening, the tonnages of each material we envisage collecting are approximately:

The remaining tonnages we could be collecting by year 3 would see a vast reduction in any potential income. However as we will still have an obligation to operate the collections for these materials, the cost of providing these collections will remain/increase.