Scotland receives £80 million investment to boost bottle and can recycling
Recently, the Scottish government has injected a large amount of resources to fund the Deposit Return Scheme that will help local residents collect, sort and recycle beverage packaging and containers. This means an investment of 80 million pounds sterling (US$97 million).
Biffa, a British waste management company, has decided to invest in the infrastructure needed to ensure that used beverage containers such as plastic, glass and aluminum can be recycled and then turned into new bottles.
By 2023, shoppers are expected to have to pay about 20 pence as a deposit when purchasing any single-use can or bottle. However, the same deposit will be refunded upon return of the unused container in question. The Deposit and Return System (DRS) is responsible for regulating these policies.
Lorna Slater, the Minister for the Circular Economy, recently spoke about packaging and suggested that processing and reusing these materials will be a massive task for the state to rely on. This will involve billions of bottles and cans that will need to be collected, sorted and recycled in order to succeed.
There is much talk of the support that the Biffa Company, a DRS partner of Circularity Scotland, will receive by committing £6 million to convert a former depot in Motherwell into an advanced recycling center for used packaging. This will facilitate the processing and reuse of these materials.
As a result of the DRS program, Biffa anticipates that it will be able to create 500 new jobs at its new plant in Motherwell, plus an additional 140 jobs at its packaging recycling center in Motherwell.
According to Circularity Scotland’s chief executive, David Harris, explained, “The DRS will transform the way we recycle in Scotland, preventing billions of bottles and cans a year from ending up as waste.”
A few months ago, a significant group of beverage production and service people raised concerns about the Scottish Government’s plan for the Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) in an open letter. They warned that this could bring disaster if they did not stop to assess the situation carefully before proceeding with plans.
The executive decided that Rural Economy Development Sectors (REDS) should be implemented in England and Northern Ireland by 2025. This is a new goal imposed by the government for the five-year term.
The UK Government appears to be ready to undo the progress that had been made towards the implementation of the SDDR, which was planned for this summer. According to The Guardian, the UK is prevented from supporting the Scottish recycling initiative.
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