Before DRS Starts, Councils Need the Numbers in Black and White

LARAC is right to push for a fresh look at what the Deposit Return Scheme will do to council recycling services.

The argument is not that people should put fewer bottles and cans back into the system. It is that Government cannot remove some of the best-value material from kerbside collections, then assume councils will save money without showing the full calculation.

According to the recent Letsrecycle report, Defra’s 2024 impact assessment put the saving at 69p per household. LARAC thinks the cost could run into millions once lost material income, MRF charges, contract changes, enforcement work and litter management are counted.

That is a big gap. It needs resolving before the proposed October 2027 start date.

Bottles and Cans Help Pay for Recycling

PET bottles and aluminium cans are not just items residents put in a recycling bin. For many collection systems, they are part of the financial mix that helps make kerbside recycling affordable.

Take those materials out and the rest of the stream does not suddenly become cheaper to collect or sort.

A council still needs crews, vehicles, depots, bins, customer contact teams and contracts. A MRF still has fixed costs. If valuable containers disappear while lower-value material stays, the economics change.

That is why six independent MRF operators have also asked for a pause and review. Their concern is straightforward: PET and aluminium may be a smaller share of the tonnage, but they matter a great deal to MRF income.

It is hard to see how anyone can judge the effect of DRS without looking at that loss properly.

Old Data Is Not Good Enough

LARAC has questioned the use of composition and behaviour data from 2016.

That should worry anyone responsible for a collection service today.

Household recycling has changed. Material prices have changed. Councils have changed their collection systems. MRFs have invested, adapted or closed. Many contracts are under pressure from inflation, labour shortages and higher treatment costs.

A model built on older data may have been the best available at the time. It should not now be treated as the final answer for a scheme due to start in 2027.

Government needs to publish a new assessment using current material data. It should show what councils now collect, the value of what they would lose, the likely change in MRF income and the cost of altering contracts that were written before DRS.

The answer will not be the same everywhere.

A dense city with flats, shared bins and high contamination faces different problems from a rural authority with long collection routes. A council operating its own service faces different choices from one locked into a long-term contract. Those differences need to appear in the numbers.

Councils Should Not Carry an Unknown Bill

The central question is simple: if DRS creates costs for councils, who pays?

LARAC has suggested that Government use the New Burdens Doctrine in England, similar arrangements elsewhere in the UK or a share of unredeemed deposits. All are worth serious consideration.

Unredeemed deposits are not a side issue. They arise when containers are not returned. If those funds build up, there needs to be a clear rule for where they go and what they pay for.

Councils should not be left making up the difference through council tax, service cuts or reduced investment in recycling.

There also needs to be a live review once DRS begins. A one-off impact assessment will not tell us enough. The first years will show whether collection tonnages change as expected, whether litter falls, whether MRF income drops and whether compensation reaches the councils that need it.

The people dealing with those results should have a seat at the table. That means councils, collection contractors and MRF operators, not only the bodies running the deposit scheme.

DRS Is Arriving Alongside Other Reforms

This is where the timing gets difficult.

DRS is not the only change on the way. Councils are also preparing for packaging Extended Producer Responsibility and Simpler Recycling. Each reform affects material, money, reporting and contracts.

Treating them as separate programmes might make Whitehall administration easier. It does not reflect how waste services operate.

A council does not run one service for DRS, another for pEPR and another for Simpler Recycling. It runs one collection service for residents. Its contractors, bins, vehicles, sorting sites and budgets are shared across the whole job.

If PET bottles and cans leave the kerbside stream, that affects the material a MRF receives. If pEPR payments change, that affects council budgets. If Simpler Recycling changes what households put out, that affects collection rounds and contamination.

The policies need to be tested together.

Good Data Would Cut Through the Argument

At the moment, much of the debate is based on forecasts. Forecasts are necessary, but they should be checked against what happens on the ground.

Councils need clear records of what they collect. MRFs need to show how their incoming material changes. Government needs to see whether money promised through reform is reaching the services absorbing the cost.

That requires reliable data from collection through to sorting and reprocessing.

For WasteSync, this is the practical opportunity. Waste data should not sit in spreadsheets, PDF reports and separate contractor systems until someone tries to reconcile it months later. It should give the people running services a usable record of material movement, service performance and cost.

The point is not to create another reporting burden. The point is to stop decisions being made without a clear view of what is happening.

Get the Scheme Right Before Launch

A Deposit Return Scheme can improve the capture of drinks containers. It can reduce litter. It can give people a clear reason to return bottles and cans.

But none of that removes the need to protect the services already collecting household recycling.

Before October 2027, Government should update the impact assessment with current data, publish the assumptions, set out how council losses will be covered and agree a proper review process with the people who will have to make the scheme work.

The question is not whether DRS is a good idea in principle.

The question is whether it has been costed properly for the councils and MRFs that will deal with the consequences every day.