The Scottish government is delaying its deposit return scheme for more than two years after accusing UK government ministers of deliberately sabotaging its plans.
Lorna Slater, the Scottish Greens minister, said on Wednesday afternoon the recent decision by ministers in London to bar the Scottish government from including glass in its scheme meant it was no longer feasible in its current form.
She said the ban on including glass was intended to undermine Scotland’s scheme, even though it had been endorsed in 2020 by every party at Holyrood including the Conservatives, and to weaken the powers of Scotland’s devolved parliament.
Ministers in London had also imposed an as-yet-undefined cap on deposit charges, currently set at 20p in Scotland, a single administration fee for all firms across the UK, and one UK-wide barcode on affected products, she said.
“These delays and dilutions lie squarely in the hands of a UK government that has sadly seemed so far more intent on sabotaging this parliament than protecting our environment,” Slater told MSPs.
She said the Scottish government therefore had decided to suspend its scheme until England, Wales and Northern Ireland introduced theirs from October 2025. A Scottish government source said they hoped an incoming Labour government might decide to reinstate glass after the next general election.
Scottish ministers had wanted their scheme to begin in March 2024. But under the UK’s post-Brexit internal market rules, designed to minimise trade barriers within the UK, they needed permission from Westminster to introduce a mandatory deposit and different barcodes.
Campaigners who support deposit return schemes, widely used in other European countries, said excluding glass on cost grounds will substantially reduce the amount of glass being recycled and increase carbon emissions.
They said the delay would mean millions of plastic and glass bottles and aluminium cans would now litter Scottish streets, fields and beaches.
Dr Kat Jones, the director of Action to Protect Rural Scotland, which has campaigned for the scheme, said: “This is a bleak day for anyone who cares about Scotland’s litter crisis, or indeed the global climate crisis. [It] is a victory for those in industry who have never wanted to pick up the costs of their irresponsible business model.”
Slater’s announcement, which had been signalled earlier this week by Humza Yousaf, the first minister, follows an increasing bitter dispute within Scotland about the effectiveness and costs of the scheme, which has already been delayed three times and repeatedly revised.
It was heavily attacked by two candidates to succeed Nicola Sturgeon as Scottish National party leader earlier this year, including Kate Forbes, who narrowly lost the contest to Yousaf. Craft brewers, small shop owners, small soft drinks makers and whisky producers had also strongly criticised it.
Maurice Golden, for the Scottish Tories, said the Scottish government’s “disastrous scheme” had already failed “long before the intervention of the UK government”.
Accusing Slater of using the UK government decision as an excuse to cover up her own failings, Golden said the two firms that would run the scheme had both urged the Scottish government to continue with it.
Biffa, the waste and recycling contractor that would handle the billions of cans and bottles involved in the Scottish scheme, and Circularity Scotland, the firm set up by industry to oversee it, said earlier this week it could continue without glass, with some alterations.
Biffa had warned a delay would send a “seismic and detrimental signal” to the businesses that backed the scheme and threatened the Scottish government’s reputation as a “legislator that can be relied upon”.
Sarah Boyack, for Scottish Labour, said: “Scotland is paying the price for two bad governments, both of whom seem more interested in a constitutional fight rather than constructive work with each other.”
