{"id":422375,"date":"2026-02-12T20:48:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T20:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/422375\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T20:48:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T20:48:10","slug":"application-approved-for-breakaway-drs-in-wales-which-includes-glass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/422375\/","title":{"rendered":"Application approved for &#8216;breakaway&#8217; DRS in Wales which includes glass"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This decision allows Wales to proceed with a unique, \u201cbreakaway\u201d DRS, differing from the glass-free schemes planned for England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n<p>Andy Bagnall, director general at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.britishsoftdrinks.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">British Soft Drinks Association<\/a>, said: \u201cThis is a big step forward in establishing a UK-wide deposit return scheme, enabling a unified approach for aluminium cans and plastic bottles, although granting an exclusion for single-use glass means challenges remain.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe look forward to the Welsh government now rapidly appointing a scheme administrator and ensuring glass is included in the scheme in the most practical way possible, by keeping the required number of glass-enabled reverse vending machines to a minimum.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Welsh government must also engage with industry to resolve the issues inherent in different schemes on either side of the border \u2013 including the risk of substantial fraud \u2013 to remove the cliff edge in four years\u2019 time when the transition period ends.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis pragmatic approach is the only way to deliver a workable scheme without unintended consequences for shoppers and small businesses. The soft drinks industry will play its part so that, together, we can kickstart the circular economy, boost recycling and reduce litter.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Andrew Opie, director of food and sustainability at the British Retail Consortium (BRC), said: \u201cThe clarity given today on Welsh DRS by the UK government under the Internal Market Act is long awaited and welcome, and we are pleased Wales will align their scheme on PET and cans with the rest of the UK.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHowever, significant challenges and uncertainty remain around proposals to include single-use glass without a deposit, which will add costs and create potential fraud risks, without clear environmental benefit.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe will continue to work with the Welsh government to resolve these issues and explore more effective alternatives. In the meantime, it is vital that the Welsh government appoints a Deposit Management Organisation as soon as possible to provide certainty for the industry.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This decision allows Wales to proceed with a unique, \u201cbreakaway\u201d DRS, differing from the glass-free schemes planned for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":422376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[113704,59,25202,57,58,50,56,54,55,1220],"class_list":["post-422375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-drs","tag-gb","tag-glass","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wales"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=422375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/422376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}