Only at Footprint would a packaging story steal the spotlight from Donald Trump and the gathering at Davos. And for that we are proud.
This is the news (of course) that the Deposit Return Scheme for Drinks Containers (England and Northern Ireland) regulations have been approved by both the House of Commons and the House of Lords and will come into force in the coming days. This is a significant milestone, said Defra.
The Scottish Government has also notified their draft Deposit and Return Scheme for Scotland (Amendment) Regulations 2025 to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) which have now been published on the WTO website. These regulations have been drafted to align the Scottish DRS with those being developed in England and Northern Ireland. Accompanying the regulations is an order to enable the designation of the scheme administrator of the DRS in Scotland.
Surely we are not actually going to have a DRS? Well, Defra said applications to become a deposit management organisation (DMO) for the schemes in England, Northern Ireland and Scotland close on February 3rd 2025. “We are on track to appoint the DMO(s) in April 2025 [and] the scheme will go live in October 2027,” the department said. Ecosurety, a compliance scheme, said the October 2027 implementation date seems “increasingly likely”. Emma Bourne, director for resources and waste at Defra, wrote on social media: “We are another step closer to a deposit return scheme for drinks containers”.
Supermarkets still think the date is not workable. Their latest excuse is to point at Wales, which won’t join the UK scheme because it doesn’t include glass bottles. There are also costs to think about, the retailers said in a letter coordinated by the British Retail Consortium and reported by The Grocer. The likes of Tesco and Sainsbury’s want a balance struck between environmental goals and industry readiness.
On DRS, retailers will never be ready it seems. But how about extended producer responsibility for packaging (pEPR)? PackUK – the scheme administrator for pEPR – formally launched this week, and will be responsible for the pEPR programme. “PackUK will shift the cost of managing household packaging waste from taxpayers and local authorities to those businesses who use and supply the packaging, applying the ‘polluter pays’ principle,” the administrator said. “In turn, it will boost investment into local recycling services.”
EPR for packaging, like DRS, has taken a step forward. But there are those that are hoping it will be pushed back (or in DRS’s case off a cliff). Setting the fees for pEPR is the nightmare facing those involved. Few seem happy with the more precise fees that were published recently for different packaging materials. Local authorities are also this month unpicking the projected funds they are set to receive. The fees have been calculated using the most recent data submitted by large organisations to the EPR report packaging data portal, and the local authority waste management costs modelled using Defra’s ‘local authority packaging cost and performance’ model.
From the corridors of Nobel House (Defra HQ) we move to Davos, where the world’s political and business elite (apparently) this week faced an uncompromising address from António Guterres. The UN chief rounded on a lack of multilateral collaboration in an “increasingly rudderless world” at risk from two existential dangers: climate change and unregulated artificial intelligence (AI).
Still, at least there has been time in Switzerland to announce the new tech that will help us avert disaster: like new bottles that are “designed to disappear”. Actually vanishing is the world’s best hope to beat climate change, according to Bloomberg, which reported: “To have a chance against global warming, key economies and industries need to hit crucial emissions targets by 2030. They’re far off track. […] And that was before the re-election of Donald Trump.”
He is not going to have the last word, though: because we’d like to spotlight something that’s worth a few of your minutes over that cup of tea. This week it’s a piece on The Conversation by Jessica Chapman and professor Brian Reid. The University of East Anglia academics try to unpick the “real meaning” of regenerative. It is not just another way of saying organic, they explain, with regenerative being more ambiguous and less prescriptive (which can be “a double-edged sword”). “Hold suppliers to account by asking questions,” they advise.
Our other stories this week cover research showing that smaller portion sizes rather than meat-free days might be key to convincing meat-eaters to cut back on steak, bacon and chicken.
Sodexo has published its consumer barometer showing people are “mostly positive but still have some doubts” about sustainable food; and that nutrition might best help nudge them towards better diets.
Supermarket Lidl, meanwhile, has followed up its ambitious plant-based protein targets with new commitments on fibre and promising to ditch all packaging designs deemed “attractive to children” from its least healthy own-brand products by the middle of the year.
