23. Recycling rewards - exploring Deposit Return Schemes

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James Piper: Hello. Welcome to Talking Rubbish, a weekly podcast delving deep into the world of recycling and discussing the truth behind snappy headlines and one sided stories. In this episode we will explore how electricals are recycled. Deep dive into deposit return schemes. Decide whether fireworks are rubbish or not. Happy New Year. And I have a question about why films on a tray might say, do not recycle. I'm James Piper, author of the Rubbish Book and I'm joined by Robbie Stanenforff, my far from rubbish friend. Happy New Year, Robbie.

Robbie Staniforth: Happy New Year, James.

James Piper: Did you have a good party yesterday?

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, yeah, it was good stuff. Enjoyed it.

James Piper: We're doing the classic pretending we're recording this live, which we're not.

Robbie Staniforth: Don't know what I'm doing for New Year's so I can't say whether it was good, bad or indifferent.

James Piper: My new baby kept me awake. I think it's safe to say.

Robbie Staniforth: That's safe.

James Piper: Yeah, that's safe.

Robbie Staniforth: And that's good grind.

James Piper: That means I saw midnight in probably. These are some solid predictions you will see New Year in. I will have a baby that's either kept me awake for New Year or I've fallen fast asleep at like 4 in the afternoon or something and I've slept through. We'll talk about fireworks later. But we're not doing a special. We've done enough specials. We've had Halloween, Baby Christmas.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, the New Year special's a bit trite.

James Piper: I think maybe next year we'll do a New Year special. Who knows? There's not enough. I don't think there's not enough things around New Year. How to recycle Big Ben. That would be,

Robbie Staniforth: Or those party poppers. They could be. Oh, there's a few little bits in theren't.

James Piper: Can we quickitly craft next year's new. No, it's too. No, we.

Robbie Staniforth: It's too late.

Robbie saw something on LinkedIn yesterday that dismayed him

James Piper: All right. speaking of celebrations though, Robbie, I did see something on LinkedIn that really made me laugh yesterday. No, laugh is the wrong word. It dismayed me yesterday. It's a very different. Very different emotion.

Robbie Staniforth: Very different emotion. You were dismayed by this?

James Piper: Yeah, I sort of laughed and then I thought about it. Thought, oh my goodness, this is awful. It was on LinkedIn and it was a promotion from Now. I don't know how to say it. O Vodka A U Vodka. I have to say. Here's the promo bit. I'm gonna buy some of this because it's toasted m. Marshmallow flavour vodka.

Robbie Staniforth: That does sound tasty.

James Piper: Sounds great. And perfect for fireworks and New Year.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, yeah.

James Piper: That's how we're go. Goingna link this back. Okay. Toasted marshmallow flavour vodka. Delicious. Now, what they did was they posted some bottles out to influencers, right?

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah.

James Piper: And I just saw this come up on, I think it was on LinkedIn. And they had recreated a marshmallow effect. So basically the bottle was wrapped in like this big thing of white something. I'll tell you what it is in a second. And you had to, as an influencer, just like rip open this. What looked. And honestly, I could have eaten it. It looked like marshmallow.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, okay. So it was all like sort of gooey packaging.

James Piper: Gooey packaging, yeah. And I thought, what is this? Now, I did some digging. I managed to find a WhatsApp chain where they would, Honestly, don't ask how I found this. I found a WhatsApp message about them telling each other how to make this packaging.

Robbie Staniforth: Okay.

James Piper: And what they were using was foam clay F. And it was clay by a company called Boz Bo Ohs. So I looked this up, I looked up what is foam clay. And foam clay is a modelling clay made from a combination of polystyrene beads, water, PVA and sodium, tetraborate pentahhydrate. I mean, whoa.

Robbie Staniforth: So mixed material at all.

James Piper: It was fascinating. And all these influencers were like, look at this, it's amazing. It's like a marshmallow. And I was looking at it going, what do you do with that? It's going straight in the bin, straight in the rubbish. Anyway, so I'm not very happy with that being used as packaging. I just wanted to call that out. But I must admit, it had a big sticker on it saying, do not eat. And I know why. I would have eaten it.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, well, a. I mean, I don't think that's going toa catch on, but an interesting one.

James Piper: My friend James, the same James who put too many paper straws in when he went to the cinema.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, yeah. Double Straw James, as he's known.

James Piper: Double Straw James. So, yeah, these are my friends. So we've got ry cycling Double Straw James.

Double Straw James says Squeezy Marmite disappeared in 2020

So Double Straw James, he asked me the other day, where has Squeezy Marmite gone?

Robbie Staniforth: Oe.

James Piper: And I was like, what are you talking about? We still have Squeezy Marmite. We still have Marmite and plastic that you squeeze out. Turns out we don't. It disappeared in the year 2020, so it was released in March 2007, discontinued in 2020. So if people don't know what this is. It was, you know, Marmite M comes in a glass jar. Was it Vegemite for our Australian friends. Marmite comes in a glass jar and Unilever, who own it, they put it in a squeezy plastic thing so you could just squeeze it straighto toast. It turns out it was discontinued in 2020 and this was cited because Unilever had a commitment to hal plastic.

Robbie Staniforth: ah. So the total number and they realised

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Robbie Staniforth: actually Marmite they could just continue to sell it in glass jars.

James Piper: I was pretty interested in this, so it got me think about ketchup because I thought, God, imagine if hin said, we're not going to sell ketchup in plastic bottles anymore because of plastic. We're going to only sell them in glass. They would be uproall.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, no, they would, yeah. They've now got a very technical squeezy bottle, haven't they? The sort of upside down bottle, if you know what I'm talking about.

James Piper: I think Ma might have the same thing. Anyway, did. It's coming back. So what? Unile clearly have got over this commitment to half plastic. And, yeah, it's coming back.

Robbie Staniforth: Back in Sainsbury'okay. I'm going toa have to look out for that. I'm a big Marmite fan. The whole household eats Marmite, so we go through it quick.

James Piper: So what do we think to this though? When a company like says they're going to do something for environmental reasons and then they realise actually we could sell more if we brought it back, they bring it back. Like, what's the, what's our vibe on this? What's the talking rubbish position?

Robbie Staniforth: Wow. I know it sort of seems like it's unnecessary, the plastic, but I bet you it's recyclable, isn't it? And probably as recyclable as glass.

James Piper: Yeah. I was wondering about food waste, whether you get more out of a squeezy. Yeah, I'm not sure.

Robbie Staniforth: Well, what we do in our household is in the glass jar, pour boiling water and the last thing you have out of it is drink.

James Piper: bit of, Oh, that's nice. Yeah. Yeahmite, like a yeasty drink. There we go. That's the Marmite update, additions and corrections.

Episode 19 of the show was about compostable packaging

So I actually. We released our, Compostable episode. Actually, I think this email came in just before we released our compbostible website because we sort of talked about it so much. So episode 19 was our compostible episode and I had an email in from Vegware. Now, Vegware are obviously very big in.

Robbie Staniforth: The caposle space from the company. Someone from the company.

James Piper: Ok, yeah, absolutely. And they said, oh, we love the show. Heard, you're doing a compostaode, we'd be interested in giving our view. And Vegwear are a very big compostable packaging, brand. And obviously we talked in that episode about the difficulties of collecting. So I just thought it'd be worth reading out some of what they said in their email. Now, they hadn't heard the Compostitor episode at this point because it hadn't gone out. So they were saying that they're running compostable trials and expanding commercial composting, which is great. And they offer free of charge waste consultancy to clients. So really good stuff. but they did acknowledge in their email things that we said in our, Compostible episode, that on the go, compostible is a challenge. it's perfect for closed environments. We talked about that.

Robbie Staniforth: We agree on that one.

James Piper: They said they're working quite heavily in things like government offices, universities, film production. Now, film production is interesting because actually I've been in touch with someone who works in film sustainability and I think that would be a really good interview. look out for that, guys. this year, in 2025, I promise we will have an episode about film sustainability.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, that'd be good. Yeah.

James Piper: tourist attractions, catered offices, all that sort of stuff. So, yeah, just wanted to mention that now I have gone back to them to say, this is great, thanks for the email. What kind of percentages of the product you re putting out there? Are you composting? And I'm waiting for an answer.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, we'll see in those, like, closed environments where they're getting them back, are they getting 100% back? You sort of think they could do, couldn't they, like.

James Piper: Yeah, absolutely.

Robbie Staniforth: There might be the odd one taken out.

James Piper: I mean, I think Vegware are doing a really good job of creating infrastructure, particularly in closed environments, offices, all those kind of things. But I do think you have to be honest about compost possibleable return rates. And you can't just say, oh, we put loads of comp. Possible packaging out there and then we give loads of consultancy. You have to say, we put compible packaging out there, we give loads of consultancy. And off the back of that consultancy, 50% of it is composted. That would be a really good result and I'd back that.

Robbie Staniforth: Great.

James Piper: But if they come back and say a Few percent. Then we have to say, well what's the value in that consultancy and infrastructure? So let's wait and see what we get back. Do you think I'm doing that is going to scare anyone from emailing me again? Do you think companies are just going toa be like don't email him, he asked for the detail.

Robbie Staniforth: He always comes back with a follow up question that we can't maybe answer.

James Piper: Please, if you're a company and you want to be featured on the show, just send me an email but I will ask for details. Okay, so you have to do that knowing that I'm go going to ask for details.

Ian Weeks Weeks writes in to say compostable packaging cannot be recycled

Also in additions and corrections I heard from Ian. It has been anious since we heard from Ian Weeks Weeks friend of the podcast.

Robbie Staniforth: I don't know when we lasten yeah.

James Piper: I don't know when we last mentioned Ian.

Robbie Staniforth: Starting to get worried about him.

James Piper: He's fine, he's fine. He's still listening.

Robbie Staniforth: Good stuff.

James Piper: And again we're on a bit of a compostable theme here because again I said in that episode compostable packaging is very hard to recycle or shouldn't be recycled. So compostable and recyclable do not mix. And again Ian message saying yeah they do. And I was like oh no, we've recorded a whole episode of it. I can't edit that like and we've recorded it twice. We had to come back in on a Saturday remembereaheah Now I said to him ian, what, what do you mean that compostable packaging can be recycled? Because in my world that can't happen. And he said well when they make the co op carrier bags, you

00:10:00

James Piper: know, the compostable ones, they obviously cut out the handles Y and the bit they cut out they put back in the process, and recycle it back into new carry bags. And I loved it. I thought it's a great call out. And I went back to him and said Ian, but no one actually has access to that as a consumer. He went yeah, I'm just being technical. He said if it doesn't, if it doesn't meet a recyclability test, it's not recyclable. And he agrees that because there's no or not many or hardly any facilities that consumers can access to compost, compostable packaging then it is not recyclable.

Robbie Staniforth: O so he's talking about pre consumer waste or whatever.

James Piper: Yeah, but I loved it. Well, great example in a closed environment where you're like oh, we've just cut this out of the bag. We can put it back through the process. You can do that. So thank you Ian, for writing in. If you fancy being picked apart by me, feel free to contact me on social rubbishpodcast or email talkingruubbishpodcastmail.ct rubbish process.

Our question today is how are electricals recycled

Our question today is how are electricals recycled? This is the longest gap we've ever had between assortrting and recycling. We talked about the take back and sorting of electricals back in episode 19, which was four episodes ago. We're doing episode 23 now. Since then we've had an interview, a baby and a Christmas episode. So it just not. We've had a baby, Robbie.

Robbie Staniforth: A baby episode'had?

James Piper: A baby episode. Since then it's been a lot of special. so, yeah, Happy New Year. On average, each person in the UK buys almost three new electrical items a year, which around 170 million nationally. So we'got to make sure this stuff is recycled. So Robbie, what are we doing?

Robbie Staniforth: Well, it's one of those things where items can be reused. That's got to be the first thing, isn't it?

James Piper: We started waste hierarchy. We started reused. That's nice.

Robbie Staniforth: Absolutely, yeah. So there's lots of national charities such as British Heart foundation, collect electrical items and also some smaller local charities. and they have these, electrical items for resale. They often do, the portable appliance test, sometimes called the PAT test, which would be saying test twice. So I'm trying to avoid doing that portable appliance test, to make that it's fit for resale and so that should be your port of call for something that's working.

James Piper: And what happens if it's not working? How are we going to recycle it?

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, so basically there's recycling centres and some retailers, the items, if they end up there, we talked about that in the collection, episode, didn't we? they'll be taken to a recycling plant where basically they're shredded into small pieces. You know, these electrical items get smashed up, and turned into small pieces.

James Piper: Yeah. And so once shredded they g through a similar process to just all our recycling process that we talked about. So strong magnets will remove ferrous metals such as steel. Your non magnetic metals will get removed by eddy currents. Plastic is sorted into types using loads of different methods. So we've talked about near infrared, we've talked about density separation. Again, if you need a reminder on all those things, the best thing to do is to go back over our Other episodes?

Robbie Staniforth: yeah, and I know that syink float technology, the density separation for the plastics around electronic plastic casing around laptops, things that's definitely used, for quite a lot of it that's deployed quite a lot in the uk.

James Piper: So, like disposable vapes, we're taking these things apart, we're smashing them up and then we're sorting all the different types using the various recycling methodologies. One thing I've noted, Robbie, is that we've talked about quite a lot already. What are we on episode 23? I mean, we've got quite a back catalogue now of how things work and what rubbish or notts we've talked about. I'm going to try. I think I'm going to have time before this episode goes out on our website. I'm going to put together, like, a little table of which episode we talked about different things. So, you can just do a little search for a rubbish or not and find out which episode we talked about it in.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, wow. That's a useful resource, isn't it?

James Piper: Yeah, if I can do it.

Robbie Staniforth: If you get around to it with a young child at home.

James Piper: I'm hoping I can do it. This episode will go out in the Second of Jan, so I'm hoping by the Second of Jan I can have something on our website where people can search for what episode we talked about something and what time it happened. so I don't know what that's going to look like, but, if I've managed it, it'll be in our news section. So if I've managed it, click on new section on our website and I'll have a little. I've managed to launch this table, so Second of Jan is now my deadline. I'm going to try and do that because I think people keep asking, oh, what episode did you talk about that in? And I make loads of notes, but they're not public, so if I can make them public, that'd be great.

Robbie Staniforth: If you're doing the right thing with these, old electricals, almost all the materials will get processed in the UK and become a UK commodity. Some electricals can be exported, but there is quite a lot of reprocessing and metal recycling in the uk and it's very likely, that they'll go to the various sorting and reuse, centres in the UK and

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Robbie Staniforth: also ultimately through a recycling process. it's important to say that actually there's different categories that the average person wouldn't know. We probably just think is it big or is it small Electrical item? And maybe occasionally we'll think about is it a bulb? And that's something that feels a bit different, doesn't it, because it's glass. But there's actually, in terms of the recyclers, there's six different types of, six different categories and I'm not going to go through all of them for you. and when the electronics producers and electrical equipment producers make them, they basically report them into 14 different categories, including, the later edition, the 14th one, which is photovoltaic, solar panels, et cetera. So it's very, very complicated, the system for how we report electrical, items and something that the average person probably won't know.

James Piper: Great. And the interesting thing about those recycling categories is all recycling rates, I guess for electronics is the. It's a very odd system because what's happening if we think about a tv, a TV is a great example because over time TVS have got thinner, lighter. and so what ends up happening is the companies report what they've sold, what they've put on the market. So they say, I sold this 75 inch Sony TV or whatever it is.

Robbie Staniforth: And flat screen TV.

James Piper: Exactly. And it weighed this. And then in the recycling centre, the person who's bought that 75 inch flat screen TV is bringing back their massive super heavy, you know, 40 inch TV or whatever it is, and it weighs a tonne compared to the new one. And so you end up with these very weird things with electricals where they get lighter over time. So your recycling rates are based on what's being taken to the civic community site dump. tip. Whatever we're calling it, that's what the recycling rate is based on. But what is. And they're comparing it to what has been placed on the market to come up with a recycling percentage. And what has been placed on the market is much lighter and much easier for them to manage. So it's just a really interesting quirk that happens with electronics.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah. And there was a whole period of time when that particular display equipment, category showed greater than 100% recycling rate. And it's like what, we're recycling more than we're putting on the market. It's like. No, no, no, no. If you counted by units, we're not recycling as many units as what get placed onto the market. but if you're doing it in weight, you're actually by weight recycling more in total tonnes than get sold in a given year. So it's just one of those Strange foibles.

Material Focus is funded by producers of electrical and electronic equipment

And it would be remiss if we weren't to talk about the hypnoc caat, which I'm hoping some of our, listeners will have seen. I'm sure they must have done because it's all over social media and that's by an organisation called Material Focus and it's funded by the producers of electrical and electronic equipment. Basically, what happens is the targets that they have to reach. We've talked about producer responsibility in previous episodes. We have something very similar for electricals. We'll talk about that in a four upcoming episode at some point in 2025, I'm sure. But what happens is the targets are a little stretching. They're hard to get to. And so there's a thing called a compliance fee fund that all of these electrical retailers pay into and producers of electricals pay into. And what that does is it funds comms campaigns to try and get the message, out about how and where to recycle your electricals. And you can Visit the website recycleyourelectricals.org.uk to find out where you can recycle your electricals.

James Piper: Trash talk. So we have, we've promised this trash talk for a while. I think deposit return schemes, people have been chomping at the bit for us to talk about this. I've had loads of people. I. In fact, I was looking over our Spotify comments. I have to apologise to Steph, who I noticed, put in our Spotify comments. Can you do a DRS episode? This was months ago. And I said, yeah, I'll add it to episode 16. And then I must have just changed the plan promptly.

Robbie Staniforth: Didn't bother.

James Piper: Okay, I just must have changed the plan. And then I couldn't reply to the Spotify comment. I think I can only reply once to a Spotify comment. So I couldn't reply to say, it's.

Robbie Staniforth: Coming episode three, 23, not 16.

James Piper: So anyway, there you go.

This is our second legislation episode; we'll also be doing future ones

That's what happens with these, kind of constantly, constantly moving episodes as things happen. So deposit return schemes, or DRS as we like to call it. DRS, the legislation got laid in parliament on the 25th of November 2024. So this is like our second legislation episode. We had EPR and we did like, who's paying for your recycling? Which I believe was episode eight. And this is our second one, which is DRS Deposit return schemes.

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we'll also be doing future ones on simpler recycling and the plastic packaging tax. So those are like the four main bits of legislation. So DRS is the second one we.

Robbie Staniforth: Wanted to talk about for those future ones. We should get a policy guy in for it. Shouldn't be some sort of expert in policy. That'be ideal.

James Piper: I'm going to hand to you again on this one, Robbby.

If legislation was laid in Parliament on 25 November 2024, does this mean

So that brings me to my first question, actually. o esteemed policy guy.

Robbie Staniforth: Yes, you called me.

James Piper: Called you it before. If the legislation was laid in Parliament on 25 November 2024, does this mean it's actually going to happen?

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, gosh, that is so hard to answer because they can always revoke these things, but it makes it extremely likely. The reason why I say not absolutely, definitely, even though the legislation's been laid is because they laid it in Scotland a few years ago and that never ended up launching. So it can always be delayed or revoked, unfortunately. But it looks very likely.

James Piper: Good. And we'll definitely come on to the Scotland, Wales situation, because that is fascinating when it comes to drs. So we're going to come on to that in a second. But let's just explain what it is first of all. So it's worth noting, we used to have forms of drs. Now these were more voluntary. So people often talk about the Corona, glass bottles, which I, think we're a lemonade. I'm not sure I think a Corona is the beer. But was it Corona lemonade or have I making.

Robbie Staniforth: So, yeah, it was like soft drinks, wasn't it?

James Piper: It was before my time. Just before your time, Robbie.

Robbie Staniforth: It was well before my time. It s cheek of it.

James Piper: In the 70s and 80s. so, so my understanding is it was company led and voluntary. So there were these kind of systems and I guess you get similar things now, with like milk bottles, where you get your glass milk bottles delivered and you get them refilled, but you don't necessarily pay a deposit for those. Ye we are now looking at complete systematic change. So in a deposit return scheme, a drs, basically consumers are charged a fee when they purchase a drink in a single use container. So if you go into a shop and you buy a bottle of Pepsi, let's say when you buy that bottle, you'll get charged for the Pepsi and you'll get charged a small amount of money, like 20p is the current thinking, although that's not in the legislation. So we'll talk about that in a second. let's say you pay 20p and then when you bring that bottle back, you will get your 20p back. And so when you, when you bring it back to a store or a return point, you will get that money back. The retailers that are giving you your money back will typically install reverse, vending machines where literally you'll, you're buying a bottle from the till, you pay your 20p, you drink it, you then go into a different store, let's say, because you've walked a bit down the road, you put it in a vending machine that scans the barcode, gives you your 20p back.

Robbie Staniforth: Sure.

James Piper: And that's basically what happens. Could also be a manual process, like a collection bag in the store and they just take the money out of the till. But, Is that right? They would take out.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeaheah. They could do that.

James Piper: They just take the money out of the till. and these containers will then be collected and recycled, giving us drinks containers that have a high recycling rate. So that's the basic system. Now, the first thing I'm going to say about this is I think the comms are absolutely shocking on this.

Robbie Staniforth: How so?

James Piper: Well, we not. So The sun in 2021, not known for their recycling communications. I must their headline. You can look this up. This exists. So it'twenty 21, the sun wrote a headline called Brits will be paid 20p for every plastic bottle they recycle under new government plants. It's still online. You can access this. This is what happens. They. The way the media wants to present it is, guys, you're going to get paid for your recycling because that's going to sell newspapers.

Robbie Staniforth: Sure.

James Piper: You know what doesn't sell newspapers, guys, you're going to lend a shop to 20p and you're going to get it back later. And honestly, this is why I believe we have these situations where the British public come out and vote in. And I'm not saying everyone, but, you know, we get these, polls. So a recent poll I found said 75% of people support a deposit return scheme. And in my opinion, it's because in the main it's dressed up as a payment methodology for recycling, not a lending scheme of money. So the first thing I want to make very clear is you are giving the money to the retailer and you are getting it back later. You are not making any money out of this recycling.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, but it's that individualistic thing, the mindset of, if I can get hold of someone else's containers where I haven't paid the deposit, I will be making 20p. And it's like, are you really going to end up doing that?

James Piper: Exactly. So I'M not sure what the Venn diagram is of, like sun readers who aren't interested in recycling and talking rubbish listeners. You might all be listening to us going, who would think you're going to get paid for recycling? Well, I can tell you that a lot of the media comms go down that route and when they do polls and things on it, they describe it quite badly in terms of what it actually is.

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Robbie Staniforth: Sure, yeah. No, that's poor comms. So, under the, UK legislation, containers. So let's look at the size first. Any container that's between 150 mill and 3 lititers will have this deposit, will come on to the materials a little bit later because it isn't every container of that size, but it has to be between 150mil and 3 litres. If it's smaller, it'll be outside of this scheme. If it's bigger than three litres, I mean, I don't think we've got many bottles that, are bigger than 3 lititers. Maybe you get a 5 litre water bottle, possibly like the very, very big ones, possibly.

James Piper: And we're going to start seeing all our drinks in five litres now to avoid the, deposit return scheme. I hope not everyone's going to be carrying around like a sprite in lititer.

Robbie Staniforth: Jug and they will have a bottle deposit applied to it, a container deposit, and we think it might be around 20p. But the reason that we don't know that at the moment, James, and it's not written in the legislation, is because the decision about whether it will be a flat fee like 20p for every single container, no matter what, or whether it will be a variable deposit. So 20p for a can in a shop, but maybe not 20p for a can in a six pack, because that would add up to 1 pound twentyn and probably be too high a deposit to pay for a six pack of cans of drink or whatever. So no decision has been made about whether it's a fixed flat fee per container or a variable one, is that right?

James Piper: Sorry, I thought. I've read multip PACs in the legislation. It seems to say a multip pack is treated as a group of single units. Are you confident?

Robbie Staniforth: No, it's saying. They're saying that it will be decided by the deposit management organisation, which is yet to be appointed and is outside of the, government. It won't be a government run. It will be run by industry and they will make the decisions on whether there'll be a flat deposit or whether it will be variable and how much the deposit will be, what the cost will be. That 20p.

James Piper: Okay, I learned something there. That's great.

Government say collection rates for single use containers are between 70 and 75%

Thank you. Just to put this in perspective, I mean According to DEFRA's data and the government data, across the UK customers purchased an estimated 31 billion single use drinks containers, 12 billion plastic drinks bottles, 14 billion drinks cans and 5 billion glass bottles. We're going to talk about problems towards the end of a section but let's just the government say that the collection rates for these products are between 70 and 75% and they then go on to say a significant amount of these containers end up littered or in landfill. So litter is definitely a problem for drinks containers. You're out walking, you often see a drinks container littered. I can absolutely believe that. and the UK government, Northern Ireland, the Scottish government and Welsh government do share an ambition, whatever their differences that we're about to discuss, do share an ambition to increase recycling rates of single use containers to at least 90%. So the idea was to take it from a collection rate of 70 to 75% up to 90% which will cut littering. Now the way you do that very simply is you've applied a fee that is high enough that people go, well that's worth 20p. I'm not going to throw that on the roadside. I will take that back to the store and get the 20p back. And we know they work. They definitely work. Norway collects over 95% of its plastic bottles with less than 1 1% entering the environment. So you know, there is a strong argument to say that deposit return schemes can work.

Robbie Staniforth: Absolutely. And I visited Norway about three or four years ago now, just before the pandemic, to look at their deposit return scheme with an organisation called Recoup. Thanks again for the invitation. And it was so enlightening to see how the culture around single use containers can change. And I'm sure lots of people will have gone on holiday to various parts of the world. Germany have one, where these container deposits exist.

James Piper: My dad actually moved to Copenhagen when I was how old would I have ve been like 21, I think. we went out to visit him. And the difference in terms of consumer, the way the consumer interacted with bottles was fascinating. So just to give a perspective on this, basically we would go into a supermarket in Denmark, and you would bring back your tote box that you bought before. So you had like this big plastic cratee with like 24 holes in it. I'm sure can imagine that. And Then you'd go in and you'd go, I want five Cokes, three Pepsis, six Fantas. You know, what kind of order is this? But you, you'd fill the tote box basically with all these different drinks and you'd then go take them home, drink them, you'd bring them back, they'd have the empty glass bottles in the same holes and you'd put them in the revers of vending machine. You'go fill up your tote box again. You know, it was not the culture that we had of like buying a pack of 24 cans of Coke. It was completely different.

00:30:00

James Piper: Now I said this to someone the other day actually and they said Denmark has changed beyond recognition, you know, in those 15 years and now they way more down the single use route and way less likely to use these deposit schemes. Now I don't know if that's true. I, I have been to Copenhagen recently but I wasn't really paying attention to it. but certainly a lot of these countries have kind of turned away from that culture where it's more on the go and more plastic. So I don't know if that's fair. If someone's listening from Demr, it would be great to get some insight. So feel free to write into us and it would be really good to get your opinion on the show. But certainly someone I was speaking to the other day said it's very different to kind of this world that I remember.

Robbie Staniforth: So we're one of the first countries to implement one of these deposit return schemes when we already have a well established curbside collections. Lots of these, deposit return systems that have come into place in other countries have either been well established 10, 20 years ago when recycling was much more niche, or they're in countries where they don't have very well established recycling. Curbside collections from people's homes.

James Piper: Yeah. So often the deposit return scheme came first and then the curbside came after and that just, you know, that behaviour shift then doesn't have to happen. It's quite a big ask of people who are used to putting bottles out weekly at the curb, which is quite straightforward to go, oh, you now have to bring that all back to the supermarket. That's quite, ah, that's quite a big shift I think for the average, average person. And I actually found an article because Ireland have just introduced DRRS.

Robbie Staniforth: Right.

James Piper: They introduced it in February 2024.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah. Not even a year. Ye.

James Piper: There was a report out that said 76 million bottles of cans have been returned and someone worked out, well, hang on, you sold 475. So that's a return rate of 16%. So I don't know. You know, I think when we talk about these kind of highs of countries that have implemented them and got 1995% return rates, there's a bit of a question mark as to whether we would achieve that. Because it's that behaviour change that I think is quite hard.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah. And that sort of latency, does that mean they've leaked out the system or that there's millions of euros in deposits yet to be reclaimed when people drop them back? You know it, yeah.

James Piper: To say, I mean, that would be 65 million euros just sat waiting to be claimed.

Robbie Staniforth: Wow. Okay. If only we could get our hands on those containers there'somewhere do you.

James Piper: Want to book a flight to Ireland? We could just have over. yeah. So. And cost is a really important thing. It does have a high cost. The British Realee Tail Consortium has shown that the scheme is likely to cost industry about 1.8 billion a year. So from 2025, very similar to EPR costs, but a completely, completely different to EPR in terms of what it's trying to achieve.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah. And, those are buying the machines and all that kind of infrastructure is significant. You know, it's brand new. We've got nothing to really build upon, in terms of that.

Scotland had planned on bringing in a system that had glass included

And so let's move on to the big issue, which is glass, or at least one of the biggest issues. So basically, for many years Scotland had been planning on bringing in a system that had glass included. The analysis that they did said that they were going to have a system where glass bottles would be included like the, and the cans. but the UK government, which is responsible for English waste policy, said that they did not want glass in their system and they had been given compelling evidence from various glass producers who had lobbied to say we shouldn't have glass in the system. And so what eventually happened is Scotland, had to, row back on their legislation that they had laid and they had passed because in order to get a glass they had to apply for an exemption to the Internal Markets act because effectively you would have something different going on in Scotland to the rest of the uk. And we have this Internal Market act to make sure that there's frictionless trade. And they were not granted that exemption by the UK government, which effectively put the kaiosh on having a Scottish system with a glass in. And they have subsequently confirmed their intention to align with what was the rest of the UK and this then got confirmed subsequently on the 11th of October of last year where the Minister for Environment, my Mary Cray had ah, just come into government and reaffirmed there was going to be no glass in this deposit return scheme system.

James Piper: Great. And then Wales have come along and said, well now we're going to include glass.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, I know this is just ca.

James Piper: This is so messy. So just to close up that Scotland piece, Scotland said okay, we can't do this. We've got the internal market attacked, we can't do this. And now we can't include glass. So we're going to have to align with England, we're going to have line with the rest of the uk. That caused some real problems. Circularity Scotland, which was the organisation that was kind of running it, went into administration. BIFA is currently suing the Scottish government for

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James Piper: 160 million do because they've invested in the actual recycling facilities. It's just so messy. All because of glass. And that's right. Wales went, we're going to include glass.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah.

James Piper: How did they not get caught up in the internal markets act?

Robbie Staniforth: Well that's still to be challenged, you know, as to whether they're able to do a bring forward a system with glass is still not absolutely clear. So they'll have to still go through that process. But the reason that they want to include glass is because they're already at at what they feel is much higher collection rates for recycling, collection rates of glass than the rest of the uk because they are recognised as number one in the UK for recycling, number two in Europe and number three in the world for collecting recycling. Wales is amazing and their population is amazing at recycling.

James Piper: I think we said number two in the world in the first episode. I think number two in the world.

Robbie Staniforth: Number two now in the world. Okay, well there we go. So they're amazing at collecting it. And in order to increase the amount of glass that gets collected and to improve their waste management systems in Wales, they believe the only way they can do that is to have a deposit on the container.

James Piper: Wow. So we're in a situation now where Northern Ireland, Scotland and England are looking to introduce a deposit return scheme in October 2027 excluding glass.

Robbie Staniforth: That's right.

James Piper: Wales want to introduce the deposit return scheme at the same time, including glass.

Robbie Staniforth: Ye. So it's not clear whether it will be the same time. So what Wales might end up doing is not having a system in time that's interoperable. So the declaration is that it will be interoperable with the UK system, or being there's one container, additional type of container that is glass, that will be included. So it's a bit of a bowl of spaghetti at the moment that needs to be untangled.

James Piper: And why doesn't England want glass?

Robbie Staniforth: I think in the very simplest reason is that it's more difficult to manage through, a DRS system with reverse vending machines and things. You know, glass gets smashed, you have to smash it up and treat it in a totally different way to fairly inert aluminium cans and plastic bot.

James Piper: Yeah, and I think there's some logic to that. The reverse vending machines are way more expensive if you're including glass, and so the costs increase of the system. And also, how often do you drink glass containers on the go? You know, a lot of this is about stopping littering. Most of what you drink is going to be plastic and aluminium when you're on the go. So it'it's. Really interesting. It's really interesting that Scotland wanted glass and then has had to come in line with England, who were very bullish and saying, no, we're not having it. And now Wales have said, well, we're going to do it anyway. And that has led to a situation where Wales have been bolder, I would say, you know, in that they're saying we're just going to go for it.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, well, you know, and in fairness, they are the best at recycling. So there is an argument to say that their logic may be Trump's other logic and that's how they need to be bold. And the citizens of Wales, want this and Wasteter evolved issue in the uk. So each of those four nations can do what they like. so they're exercising that right space.

James Piper: Yeah, very interesting. And we should just say, mean the glass itself is just fascinating, because what happens in a DRS is anything that goes through a DRS is exempt from epr, which was episode eight. If you need a reminder of epr, pause us now, go back to episode eight and come back. But you're either in EPR or drs, you can't be in both.

Robbie Staniforth: That's right. You can't be charged twiceice. And so what's happening is they're exempting, Deposit Return Scheme containers from having any of those waste management fees, in epr. So they're exempt from the get go, not from when it goes live in October 2027, which is the date that the UK for England, Scotland and Northern Irish government are saying it will come through.

James Piper: And so the glass industry didn't really want to be in Drs, did they?

Robbie Staniforth: No, that's right.

James Piper: I think they've just realised that now that means they're going to be an epr.

Robbie Staniforth: That's right.

James Piper: And they've realised EPR is worse than DRS in terms.

Robbie Staniforth: Well, it could be expensive. Yeah. And that's the risk they took. Know no one knew exactly all the system costs were being and they not gambled. But they bet on the fact that EPR would be easier and cheaper than Drs and maybe that's not going to bear out.

James Piper: Yeah. So there's a lot of issues here that the glass industry has of been quite vocal at the moment around. This could be the end of glass. Why would you pick glass over, aluminium and plastic if those costs are much cheaper? So really interesting, like material divide. Really interesting what's happening to the markets and, what people are talking about here. The downside to not including glasses, you miss that opportunity for reuse and refill. You. If we had collected glass bottles, there would have been an opportunity not to smash them up and to instead get them washed and get them refilled. And that is a real shame. And I suspect that is probably what whales are thinking. There's a big opportunity to increase reuse and refill.

00:40:00

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah. You only need to upgauge and make slightly heavier the glass bottle. And it can go around many times, as we've seen with my milk bottles.

James Piper: And I'm conscious we're going to run out of time.

Polytag are very keen with digital DRs

We've got a lot going on in this episode, so I'm not going to spend a long time talk about digital digital drs. I think we'll do a separate trash talk on that. But our next interview, which is in two episodesisode 25 is actually with Alice Racley from Polytag, and they're a really interesting organisation. They basically provide, sorting facilities with ways of tracking waste. And, they are very keen with digital DRs because they apply QR codes onto packaging that can be read. And those QR codes in theory could give you a digital trs. And what that, basically is you don't take it back to store, you scan it in your home. And if you're able to scan it in your home and get your deposit back, then you don't have to go back to store. And obviously it's 2025. You know, I think the reality is we should be doing more through the digital routes. And it is a bit weird that we're implementing this quite old school system of I'VE got to literally drive this bottle back to the supermarket to get my money back.

Robbie Staniforth: Where's my nearest vending machine? I've got to haul myself over.

James Piper: Yeah. So we'll do separate stuff on that because there's loads of data and detail into digital DRs. But do not be surprised if you hear Alice in two episodes time saying, why don't we have digital trs? Because she is a big advocate of it.

Robbie says there are issues with deposit return schemes for recycling

So, Robbie, I'd like to talk through some of the issues because there are issues with deposit return schemes. I think we're probably quite divided on deposit return schemes. Is that fair? I don't really like them.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah. I understand that you're not necessarily the biggest fan, but I can see why they are good things. The problem I think that I have with them is mostly that it's just going to bump up collection rates and actually there's probably other areas we could be investing time and money into that would deliver better outcomes than spending the. Whatever it is. 1.7 1.8 billionars did you say earlier? that British retail consortium think will have to be pumped into this.

James Piper: Yeah. So if I just go for a couple of reasons why I. I'm not the biggest fan of drs, and I say that with some level of. Look, I lived in Denmark, I experienced it, I loved it, I came back from Denmark and said, why aren't we doing this in the uk? Right. But that behaviour change barrier is huge. Getting the average member of the public to go back to the store with a tote with filled with bottles and replace it with new bottles is huge compared to how we do our shopping today. and I think for me, multi packs are a big. I'll be interested to see a variable fees are introduced. So if the deposit is 20p, you just have to remember that if you're buying 24 cans of Coke, that price has jumped from £8 where I found it yesterday online. £8 for Coke Zero, 24 cans to 12 pound 80 pen. 4 pound 80 pen of which is the deposit.

Robbie Staniforth: Wow.

James Piper: Yeah. Now you could buy the same volume in four 2 litre bottles for ATP. So in terms of reducing ATP extra.

Robbie Staniforth: That as a depos deposit. Yeah.

James Piper: So £4.80 if you buy 24 cans at P. If you buy 42 litre bottles, you get the same liquid, you actually get more liquid in the bottles. So it actually drives plastic. And I know the metal industry are quite strong on this. They feel that there should be variability in the multi packs for exactly this reason that you're Going to drive big format, big plastic sales.

Robbie Staniforth: Sure.

James Piper: So that's one issue. I really don't understand why we put Drs on drinks. I mean, as the government themselves has said, drinks have a collection and recycling rate of 70 to 75%. Like, we could do a much better job with much less money on l campaign. Aw_areness, and getting people to. And getting recycling on the go. Going to get recycling rates up to like 85, 90% without having to spend 2 billion on a load of machines. And if I was going to spend 2 billion on a load of machines, do you know what I'd be doing? I'd be putting flexible plastic deposit in you. You buy some flexible plastic, like a crisp packet, you pay 10p, bring that crisp packet back, you get 10p, you are taking something that has a single digit percentage recycling rate and turning that into 90%, you know, yoghurt pots. You another yoghurt roubbie. Why are we not doing deposits on things that have low recycling rates? Why are we trying to get 75% to 90 as opposed to 10 to 90? And that, to be honest, is the biggest critism. I think they really work. I think deposit schemes work. I think doing them in an established curbside where you could spend your money on litter awareness and on the go recycling, to me is just a bit weird. and I think, just fundamentally, research shows that households on lower incomes or people with disabilities are less likely to return back to store. It may be difficult to get back to a store. You may not have a car, if you've got disabilities, you may not leave the house as often. And so, unfortunately, what happens is they are, people on disabilities or

00:45:00

James Piper: lower incomes disproportionately fund the scheme and don't claim back deposits. And so it hits certain demographics much harder and in my view, in a way that doesn't really make much sense nowadays.

Robbie Staniforth: Well, let's hope when they appoint this deposit management organisation, they implement it in such a way that there is less friction than the stick a load of bottles in the back of your car, drive to a supermarket to redeem your deposit in a great big massive reverse vending machine in, 2025. There should be a much easier way. And look forward to talking to Alice about what that might well be.

James Piper: Rubbish or not.

Philip asked me to do an episode on fireworks for New Year

So, luckily I had an email quite a while ago, actually. It was about Bonfire Night. So I'm sorry, Philip, but this had taken me so long to respond to. I had an email from Philip on Bonfire Night saying, could we do an episode on fireworks. Unfortunately, I'ALREADY planned out that episode, but I thought, I'm going to move that.

Robbie Staniforth: To New Year Fireworks on New Year. Very clever.

James Piper: Happy New Year.

Don't return to a lit firework that hasn't been lit

So are, fireworks, Robbie, rubbish or not?

Robbie Staniforth: they've got to be rubbish, don't they? I mean, gosh, I would. Don't return to a lit firework. That's the first thing we should say.

James Piper: Well, and one of my earliest memories actually is being at a birthday party and picking up a sparkler from the wrong end. I am, yeah, this is ingrained in my memory to make sure things have gone out before you go near them and to make sure you pick up the right end of a sparkler.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah. Because they just looking, up once they've burnt out. It's just a little a piece of metal. It doesn't glow white hot or red hot anymore. And if you pick that up o that'sn to hurt.

James Piper: So definitely wear strong gloves. Use tongs to collect. There's our safety briefing. And you're going to want to soak them. You know, they are rubbish. But soak the fireworks overnight to ensure that nothing's going to happen. They're not going to set anything alight. So generally, just like, it'd be great to have a bucket of water, chuck them in there and then collect them up in a bag and then bid them and they just go in the rubbish bin. Unfortunately.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, I certainly think that, the thing that I do with those sparkler is I dump them in a plant pot, you know, with the hot end in, you know, put them into the soil and then come around the next day, actually usually a few weeks later because I'm lazy, and then pull them out and just put them in the normal bin. And then what about unused fireworks, James?

James Piper: Well, the safest way of disposing an unused firework is to l it. So if you've got a firework that sun you. Yeah. But keep your distance. Do a little informal display, like, you know, you don't really want to be. Well, you definitely don't want to be putting a firework in the bin that o sure hasn't been lit. So the best thing to do is do another display and light it following all the guidance. If you don't have a chance to do that and you think, I've got a massive quantity of them, I haven't got a chance to do this or I don't want to like them, then there are companies that you can contact, so specialist disposal companies, that will collect and Dispose of them in a safe manner. So. So definitely worth looking one of them up on Google if you need that. But to be honest, if you've got an unused firewwork, the best thing to do is just to, light it is alongside the guidance that has been given.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah. And don't take them anywhere near a household waste recycling facility. I've got some unused fireworks. Where'd you want them? It's like, ah, don't bring them in here.

James Piper: Yeah. And remember, fireworks come in cardboard and plastic wrap, which of course can be recycled. So when you take the fireworks out their cardboard, put the cardboard in the carboard bin and take any plastic wrap back to supermarket. Rubbish question.

So speaking of taking plastic wrap Back to supermarkets, we have some advice from Lizzie

So speaking of taking plastic wrap Back to supermarkets, EA WhatsApp from Lizzie. We're gonna have to go a bit deeper in our conversations around flexible plastic here because basically Lizzie had messaged me saying, okay, I've got, some flexible here that's on a tray. I think it was like a punnet of grapes or something like that. And the flexible has a logo that says do not recycle. Now you guys told me clear LDP is put it in the bin for the supermarket. So what's going on here that a clear film on top of a tray has do not recycle on it.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, I know we definitely need to build on this because it's been too simplistic so far. And you mentioned back in episode 13 that you look for a clear LDPE when recycling and that can go in the tray. So know these PE and pp, we need to bring a bit more, nuance to the situation.

James Piper: Yeah. So this is really quite complicated, unfortunately. So let's just do how we've got to where we are today. So in our conversation so far, we have said supermarkets are looking for clear ldpe and we have said if it's flexible, take it back to the supermarkets. Now that is true. There is a group of plastics called polyolipfins. Now polyolipfins are PE and pp. So those two types of plastic, polyethylene, polypropylene, those grouped together into this kind of plastic poly olefin, these can be taken back to supermarkets. so that's nice and straightforward.

00:50:00

James Piper: If it's an ldpe, which is pe, it can be taken back to supermarket. If it's a PP film, it can also go back to supermarkets. There is another type of film called pet. So we talked about PET before. It's what makes up plastic bottles. It can also be used to make flexibles, and PET film is not necessarily what super markets want. So V is likely to have a do not recycle label.

Robbie Staniforth: Okay.

James Piper: And this is produced by a company, an organisation called oprl, which is the Onpack recycling label. I actually sit on their board. So, luckily I could. I think we're going to bring someone froml onto this podcast. I think we need to have a deep dive into this stuff. But, basically the best thing to do with flexible is if you want to get really detailed on whether you should take it back to supermarkets or not. The best thing to do is to look for that logo that says recycle at larger stores or do not recycle. And if it says do not recycle, it's probably PET flexibles. And to be honest, the supermarkets don't really want it. So you should follow the advice of what's in that label. Now, the exception to that is we talked before about welded trays. So we talked before about if you buy like a pack of bacon, you have a tray that's got a film like welded to it, so it's hard to remove. And if those are both the same material, that can have a recycle label. Even if it's a pet flex_eible sure.

Robbie Staniforth: But it will say that on it. It will say recycle it alltogether.

James Piper: Yeah. So always follow the advice, of the label that's on the packaging. That's the best thing to do. But just to explain why we get those differences, Pepp is allowed to recycle back at store label. PET is not allowed that label. So pet film is likely to say do not recycle. Now, at the end of the day, you might not have time to do that. So I stand by our messaging before. If it's flexible and clear, chuck it in your flexible bin. It's not going to make a huge difference. But if you want to be the best recycler you possibly can be, then look for that label and follow its guidance.

Robbie Staniforth: Great advice.

James Piper: how many times do you reckon you have to listen back to that to really get to grips? I feel like that was really complicated.

Robbie Staniforth: No, fine.

James Piper: Sorry if you have to keep going back and checking it.

Robbie: Have we started 2025 with less laughterh maybe

So, Robbie, New Year, new me old podcast, we're just go goingna keep doing it. Not Chang_ine humour's the same.

Robbie Staniforth: Your laughs the same, my laughs the same.

James Piper: Has it been less? Have we started 2025 with less laughterh maybe. I feel like we've become quite a serious pocket. I think people quite like that like the balance of serious and humour is quite good, I think.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, you'got to get serious about deposit return schemes. It's going to be a big difference in a few years time.

James Piper: Yes.

James: Super excited to have our first episode of the year

Okay. Well, thank you all so much for tuning in in 2025. Super excited to have our first episode of the year. We're going to see through the whole year, I think. What are we gonna do? Like, it'll be fascinating.

Robbie Staniforth: There's loads to cover. James.

James Piper: I never know what topics we're going toa get. Literally I'm like, what are we going to do in the next couple of episodes? We have a quick chat about it and we come up with some really interesting topics.

Robbie Staniforth: Too many things to talk about.

James Piper: I'm excited for our year. Thank you again, Robby, for joining me and thank you all for listening. We really, really appreciate it. As always, you can message us rubbishpodcast on social media, talkingruubbishpodcast gmail.com on email. We have WhatsApp. We have all sorts of ways of contacting us. All of them are in our show notes. So if you're listening to this, just have a look at our show notes and there'll be links there for all those different ways of communicating with us. We cannot wait to spend the rest of our year with you and we thank you all so much for your listening and engagement. See you next week.

Robbie Staniforth: Bye.

00:53:31