Now Oxfam pledges support for bid to beat plastic scourge

OXFAM has joined calls for a radical new bottle deposit scheme for Scotland.

The Scottish Daily Mail is leading the campaign for a refundable charge on drinks containers to cut the amount of plastic, glass and metal cans littering our streets, rivers and countryside.

Now a new report co-authored by the Scottish branch of the leading antipoverty charity has backed the plan and its recommendations have been passed to the Scottish Government.

The hard-hitting study – written in conjunction with academics from Glasgow and Heriot-Watt Universities – states: ‘Packaging waste should be treated as a design flaw. Accordingly, it should be the producer’s responsibility, not that of the consumer or the municipal council who currently deal with the rubbish it creates and the degradation of community spaces.

‘To encourage packaging return, reuse, and re-manufacture, as is mandated in Germany, uniform bottle and container sizes should be introduced, as should container deposit legislation.

‘Uniform sizes allow for simpler return and reuse as they do not have to be sorted by manufacturer and brand.’

The report – published in the Journal of Cleaner Production – sets out a strategy for encouraging the public to cut down on overconsumption in a bid to both ease poverty and protect the environment.

It advocates tighter regulation of advertising, price rises for non-biodegradable goods to reflect the cost of disposing of them afterwards and giving planning priority to localised community and shopping hubs.

The Scottish Daily Mail launched the Banish the Bottles campaign earlier this year.

Under the deposit scheme, consumers would be charged a fee of up to 10p when buying a bottled or canned drink, which would later be reimbursed when the container is returned for recycling. Similar schemes are already operating successfully around the world, cutting litter and waste and encouraging the reuse of resources.

Our initiative has already won the backing of Coca-Cola and the National Federation of Retail Newsagents along with a number of breweries.

An Oxfam spokesman said: ‘We wish you the best of luck with your campaign.’

A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘We are considering the benefits and drawbacks of a deposit return scheme.’