We’re sharing this feature from British Glass which found that that 74% of respondents in Northern Ireland (compared to 69% across the UK) said that recycling glass bottles through household waste collections would be more convenient compared to recycling at a dedicated return point such as a supermarket.

UK Government urged to keep glass out of its Deposit Return Scheme

New polling shows that the British public want to continue to recycle through their existing household glass collections

Polling recently published by British Glass, undertaken by Savanta, has shown the UK public would prefer to continue recycling their glass bottles through existing household collections, rather than through a deposit return scheme.

Alongside this, the new polling shows that two thirds of UK adults (69%) say that recycling glass bottles through household waste collections would be more convenient than returning them to a dedicated return point, like a supermarket. This figure increases to 77% for those aged 65+, who are more likely to face difficulties returning their bottles to reverse vending machines.

Currently, the English and Northern Irish governments remain on course to exclude glass packaging from the scope of their deposit return schemes. However, Wales and Scotland currently plan to include glass, making the recycling of glass bottles harder for consumers and putting glass recycling rates in jeopardy.

While a deposit return scheme (DRS) works for some packaging materials like plastic and aluminium cans, British Glass and wider industry have long argued that the best solution for recycling glass is to collect all glass packaging at the kerbside through an improved system of consistent collections and a new extended producer responsibility scheme, and not via a DRS.

This would ensure that everyone in the UK, regardless of their location, can easily and conveniently recycle their glass food and drink packaging at their doorstep, without people having to lug bags and bags of heavy and highly breakable glass bottles back to a shop, as would be the case if glass bottles were included in a DRS. Only by doing this can we build on the UK’s already impressive 74% kerbside collection rate for glass as we aim to realise our industry ambition to reach a 90% glass collection rate by 2030.

Headline findings include:

• Over half of UK adults (56%) say that they would prefer to continue to recycle all glass products through their existing household recycling collections. With just a third (37%) preferring to pay a 20p deposit on glass bottles, and have to take them to a dedicated return location to get their deposit back.
• Two thirds of UK adults (69%) say that recycling glass bottles through household waste collections would be more convenient, with just 27% saying recycling glass bottles at a dedicated return point would be more convenient.
• Women (73%) and those aged 55+ (75%) are the most likely to say that recycling glass bottles through household waste collections would be more convenient.

The UK Government is due to publish details of plans for the scheme’s rollout in early 2023.

Speaking following the publication of the finding, British Glass’ Chief Executive, Dave Dalton, said:

“It is no surprise that over two thirds of UK adults would find it more convenient to continue recycling their bottles through their household collections. We already have a proven solution to improve glass recycling, and it’s at our doorsteps.”

“The British public are already great at recycling their glass at home, and these findings stress how important it is to keep glass bottles as part of existing household collections. The public don’t want to recycle glass bottles through a DRS, and as such, introducing such a scheme would likely have a detrimental impact on glass recycling rates. We need to make recycling more, not less, convenient for consumers by keeping glass recycling kerbside. That is the only way we can achieve our industry ambition of reaching a 90% recycling rate for glass packaging by 2030.”

“In addition to our concerns surrounding consumer convenience, we have long argued that including glass in a DRS is worse for the environment, leading to increased industry emissions and encouraging consumers to switch to plastic packaging. We thank the English and Northern Irish administrations for their commitment to keeping glass at the kerbside, helping to create a truly closed loop system., and strongly urge the Scottish and Welsh Governments to follow suit.”

—ENDS—

Notes To Editors:

• Savanta surveyed 2,322 UK adults online between 16^th and 18^th December 2022. Data were weighted to be representative of all UK adults.
• British Glass has consistently called on governments to keep glass recycling at our kerbside as part of its Recycle it Right campaign. Further information, and resources, are available here.
• British Glass’ CEO, Dave Dalton, has previously written on the risks of forcing glass into a Deposit Return Scheme putting recycling into reverse (here), the successes of kerbside glass recycling in Wales (here) and why the Scottish Government was wrong to include glass in its scheme proposals (here).
• A summary of a report on this issue from the consulting team at Reconomy Group company, Valpak, can be found here. The report found that an improved, consistent kerbside scheme is better for the environment than a deposit return scheme, delivering at least 11% more carbon savings (over 2 million tonnes of CO₂ by 2035) as well as achieving a higher glass collection rate of close to 90%.
• Polling conducted by YouGov for British Glass, show that over 70% of people are already satisfied with the current collection system for glass packaging and nearly half want to recycle their glass packaging through kerbside collections at their doorstep.