Anybody of a certain age will remember collecting empty glass drinks bottles and taking them back to the shop for cash.
It was a great way of topping up pocket money – and it helped keep the streets clean.
But returnable deposits died out when manufacturers put their fizzy drinks in plastic.
And just look at the roadside verges now.
Zero Waste Scotland (ZWS) calculates that 60,000 plastic bottles are littered every day north of the border.
Inevitably some of those get blown by the wind or flushed by rainfall into rivers. Next stop, the open ocean.
Plastic drinks bottles make up a third of marine plastic pollution. They break down into tiny pieces over many decades and end up in the food chain.
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That’s why the return of a deposit scheme is such a big deal – and why Sky Ocean Rescue has campaigned for it.
Deposits give waste a value.
ZWS estimates cashback on empties would reduce the number of littered bottles by 50,000 every day.
It doesn’t have to be a big financial incentive to work.
In Norway, a standard 500ml drinks bottle has a deposit of one Kroner (about 10p), a larger one 2.5 Kroner (25p). Around 96% of bottles are returned.
Many supermarkets even have ‘reverse vending machines’ which give out cash – or a charity donation – in exchange for eligible bottles.
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The collection system ensures that the plastic is pure.
Bottles are made of PET, a material that can be melted down to make new bottles.
But just one stray PVC bottle in a batch of 10,000 and the melt is ruined.
Contamination is a big issue with kerbside recycling.
But in Norway the higher value of the pure plastic – as well as the 4% of deposits that go unclaimed – help to fund the scheme.
Earlier this year, partly in response to Sky’s campaign, Coca-Cola, the world’s biggest soft-drinks manufacturer, dropped its opposition to a deposit return scheme in Scotland.
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It was an unprecedented move – the company has always opposed the schemes in other parts of the world prior to their introduction.
It removed a significant hurdle to deposits making a comeback in Scotland.
And now the Scottish government is stepping up.
The UK government needs to do the same.
It had the courage to impose a 5p charge on plastic bags, despite a potential public backlash, reducing the number handed out to shoppers by six billion in just one year.
It needs to use the same principles to reduce littering of plastic bottles.
Financial incentives work. Bring back the bottle deposit.
To get involved in Sky Ocean Rescue, visit the campaign website here. You can also watch our documentary, A Plastic Tide.
Source: Sky