A LANARKSHIRE grocer has been given permission to take the Scottish Government’s flagship deposit return scheme to judicial review.
Abdul Majid – whose Bellshill convenience store took part in a trial of the new flagship recycling programme – has raised the court action over the handling fees being paid to retailers.
Under the new system, every single-use drinks container sold in Scotland – plastic bottles, cans or glass – will be subject to a 20p deposit.
Drinkers will get their money back when their empty container is returned.
Circularity Scotland, which administers the scheme, has proposed that retailers get 2.69p for every item deposited. For automated returns, the fee would be 3.55p for the first 8,000 before dropping to 1.35p.
Mr Majid is being supported by the Scottish Grocers’ Federation.
Dr Pete Cheema from the industry body said they were “committed to a fit-for-purpose deposit return scheme, but for that to happen, recognition must be given and action taken to address the concerns around retailer handling fee levels, which has been raised in Mr Majid’s petition”.
A Circularity Scotland spokesperson defended the scheme: “The return handling fee for Scotland’s deposit return scheme will be the highest of any scheme anywhere in the world and was calculated following close consultation with industry and analysis of existing schemes in different countries.
“We continue to work closely with government and industry, including retailers and producers of all sizes, to ensure that the scheme operates as effectively, efficiently and at as low a cost as possible from when it goes live in August 2023.
“This has already seen new guidance from the Scottish Government to streamline the exemption process for those retailers who don’t wish to operate as a return point.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel