SNP’s Failed Bottle Deposit Scheme Has Cost £86 Million and Taxpayers Could Bear the Brunt
The SNP-Green Government’s ill-fated bottle recycling scheme, which aimed to boost recycling rates by imposing a 20p deposit on single-use drink containers, has resulted in £86 million in losses, and the taxpayer potentially footing the bill. The Telegraphhas the story.
Documents lodged by Circularity Scotland, the company set up to administer the postponed scheme, showed it had nearly £86.2 million of debts and liabilities when it went into administration in June.
This included £65 million owed to waste giant Biffa for the funds it invested preparing for the scheme. It had been tasked with collecting and recycling the bottles and cans collected.
Documents lodged with Companies House also showed £5 million was owed to Reverse Logistics Group, the preferred bidder for the scheme’s IT.
SNP and Green ministers wanted to boost recycling rates by forcing buyers to pay an extra 20p deposit on single-use drinks containers, including cans and bottles, that would be refunded when returned.
Every outlet that sells takeaway drinks would have been required to act as a return collection point, with reverse vending machines outside supermarkets, community centres and other public places.
The U.K. Government said it would grant the scheme a conditional exemption from the Internal Market Act, which was needed for it to apply to drinks containers imported to Scotland from elsewhere, but glass bottles could not be included.
Lorna Slater, the Green minister in charge of the scheme, then delayed it until at least October 2025 despite Circularity Scotland making clear it could have gone ahead with just plastic containers and cans.
Drinks manufacturers and retailers then pulled their funding from the firm, forcing it into administration. The company has now lodged a 15-page ‘statement of affairs’ at Companies House detailing its assets and liabilities.
The long list of creditors included the British Soft Drinks Association, owed more than £3 million, Tennent’s, Coors, Carlsberg, Heineken, Lucozade, Ribena and Highland Spring.
Also owed money were Marks & Spencer and supermarket giants Aldi, Lidl, Co-op, Tesco, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s.
Michael Marra, Scottish Labour’s finance spokesman, told the Scottish Mail on Sunday: “The SNP-Green Government’s bungled deposit return scheme has left businesses out of pocket, workers out of a job and recycling rates as low as ever.
“There are still huge questions over whether taxpayers could end up footing the bill for this fiasco. It is astonishing Lorna Slater is still responsible for fixing the mess she made of this scheme.”
Have I upset the delegation from Jockistan..? Why politicians think they can run businesses is beyond me. They are utterly clueless. The SNP appears to have a knack of wasting 8 and 9 figure sums of tax payer money on every project they do. Never mind ‘Go woke, go broke’.
If you disagree downvoters, why not join in the chat and give us your reasons. If not, just keep downvoting me. I think -78 is my record. Come on, you can do it.!
Wasn’t the admission that these same people cut down 16 million trees..you know, the things that ‘really’ help with CO2 emissions, to make way for ‘wind farms’….enough to show their total lack any joined up thinking or green credentials?
I’m currently in a ‘holding pattern’ about everything…and commenting less and less..I might be waiting for the conflagration that’s just got to come..hasn’t it??
I agree with your feelings on this matter.. just one point though ebygum.. CO2 emissions don’t need any help.. we have to get it across to people that CO2 is not a pollutant, its the gas of life, absolutely necessary, and its levels now if anything are worryingly low compared to times past.
I fear you’re right RW.. but I’ve been on a CO2 mission for years, and have quite a few converts now who were firmly entrenched on the fear CO2 side, so making progress..
This should really be self-evident: Every carbon atom in our bodies — and there are plenty of them as these are mainly composed of carbon — ultimatively started out as CO2 molecule some plant drew from the air and without these plants splitting carbondioxide into carbon and oxygen, there would also be no oxygen we could breathe.
And the other side of the coin is the fact that some producers deliberately increase the amount available to their plants. No shortage of info on “CO2 enrichment”, such as this one: https://uk.airliquide.com/solutions/co2-enrichment-greenhouses Spot the spelling error in that site! ISTR that a relatively cheap method involves using the exhaust from gas fired heating plant, rather than spewing it out into the atmosphere. Greenhouses in cold environments that need heating are an example of that.
They’re making it stick Freddy with clever manipulation by behavioural scientists and a continuous media barrage, plus a plebiscite unable or unwilling to think critically..
I know….….
This is still one of the best ‘rants’ against the nut-quackery I have ever heard.….the brilliant Alan Jones, from Sky News Australia…. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJv8SZ2Ngmo
The entire SNP /GREEN Pincer movement is an abject failure of dogma and ideology trumping common sense. ——Everything this commie pact gets involved in is a total disaster. I hear now that the SNP want to stop people selling their house unless they get the gas central heating removed and they replace that at considerable expense with a silly heat pump. This is climate blackmail. These people are a diabolical disgrace. They are to democracy what sharks are to your limbs.
It’s unsurprising that a deposit scheme which was never put into action had no effect on recycling rates. Apart from that, this reads like another small government privatization success: Loads of private enterprises competing for plundering the taxpayer most effectively. Business as usual.
Exactly Hux.. and there are still millions out there that think government has money.. yes they do.. our bloody money.. paid in taxes on just about everything..
A bizarre scheme. At my place, glass bottles and plastic ones are collected by the Council every other week. No doubt the overall cost is buried in the rates. A fair way back, it was normal for some trades to collect their own bottles, clean them, and use them again. I can remember that being done by local breweries in Bamberg. Many of their bottles were a bit scratched, but clean enough for use again. Even further back, when I was a kid, the local farmer did the same thing with milk bottles – home delivery and empty collection.
Our milk is delivered daily and the empties taken back and re-used.
We were at our small Farmers market yesterday – the lamb people, who also sell their own eggs, told us they cannot get egg boxes and have to source them from Spain.
WTF?
At the time Sturgeon announced the scheme to recycle single use plastic bottles she also mandated that everyone must wear single use plastic face masks. In addition plastic bottles do something useful while the face masks were performative and deleterious in the long run.
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God bless the Block fund and the Barnett formula. The poor jocks would have to pick it up on their own if it wasn’t for our deep pockets.
Have I upset the delegation from Jockistan..? Why politicians think they can run businesses is beyond me. They are utterly clueless. The SNP appears to have a knack of wasting 8 and 9 figure sums of tax payer money on every project they do. Never mind ‘Go woke, go broke’.
If you disagree downvoters, why not join in the chat and give us your reasons. If not, just keep downvoting me. I think -78 is my record. Come on, you can do it.!
I’m giving you an uptick 👍 these complete morons couldn’t run a proverbial pizz up in a Brewery ( not now there’s a shortage of recepticals )
Tax payers bearing the brunt.. now there’s a novelty..
When will people rise up against these shyster’s?
Wasn’t the admission that these same people cut down 16 million trees..you know, the things that ‘really’ help with CO2 emissions, to make way for ‘wind farms’….enough to show their total lack any joined up thinking or green credentials?
I’m currently in a ‘holding pattern’ about everything…and commenting less and less..I might be waiting for the conflagration that’s just got to come..hasn’t it??
I agree with your feelings on this matter.. just one point though ebygum.. CO2 emissions don’t need any help.. we have to get it across to people that CO2 is not a pollutant, its the gas of life, absolutely necessary, and its levels now if anything are worryingly low compared to times past.
https://co2coalition.org/facts/140-million-year-trend-of-dangerously-decreasing-co2/
It’s invisible and it’s a gas. That’s sufficient for people to become afraid of it if told to do so.
I fear you’re right RW.. but I’ve been on a CO2 mission for years, and have quite a few converts now who were firmly entrenched on the fear CO2 side, so making progress..
This should really be self-evident: Every carbon atom in our bodies — and there are plenty of them as these are mainly composed of carbon — ultimatively started out as CO2 molecule some plant drew from the air and without these plants splitting carbondioxide into carbon and oxygen, there would also be no oxygen we could breathe.
Great post RW..
Which makes Gates, Branson et al’s desire to ‘scrub’ CO2 from our atmosphere utterly terrifying.
It certainly does P-S.. but they know exactly what they’re doing. No CO2 = No food = billions of dead plebs = job done..
And the other side of the coin is the fact that some producers deliberately increase the amount available to their plants. No shortage of info on “CO2 enrichment”, such as this one: https://uk.airliquide.com/solutions/co2-enrichment-greenhouses Spot the spelling error in that site! ISTR that a relatively cheap method involves using the exhaust from gas fired heating plant, rather than spewing it out into the atmosphere. Greenhouses in cold environments that need heating are an example of that.
Why is it then that C02 is being used to bash our heads in when it’s so obviously a good thing ! How are they making this bullsh1t stick 🤔
They’re making it stick Freddy with clever manipulation by behavioural scientists and a continuous media barrage, plus a plebiscite unable or unwilling to think critically..
I know….….
This is still one of the best ‘rants’ against the nut-quackery I have ever heard.….the brilliant Alan Jones, from Sky News Australia….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJv8SZ2Ngmo
It is a good rant! Thank goodness there are people like him out there. A great pity they are ignored by TWTB
I hope so 🤯
The entire SNP /GREEN Pincer movement is an abject failure of dogma and ideology trumping common sense. ——Everything this commie pact gets involved in is a total disaster. I hear now that the SNP want to stop people selling their house unless they get the gas central heating removed and they replace that at considerable expense with a silly heat pump. This is climate blackmail. These people are a diabolical disgrace. They are to democracy what sharks are to your limbs.
Well said.. I couldn’t agree more..
It’s unsurprising that a deposit scheme which was never put into action had no effect on recycling rates. Apart from that, this reads like another small government privatization success: Loads of private enterprises competing for plundering the taxpayer most effectively. Business as usual.
“and the taxpayer potentially footing the bill”
The taxpayer ALWAYS foots the bill. Every bill.
Exactly Hux.. and there are still millions out there that think government has money.. yes they do.. our bloody money.. paid in taxes on just about everything..
👍
A bizarre scheme. At my place, glass bottles and plastic ones are collected by the Council every other week. No doubt the overall cost is buried in the rates. A fair way back, it was normal for some trades to collect their own bottles, clean them, and use them again. I can remember that being done by local breweries in Bamberg. Many of their bottles were a bit scratched, but clean enough for use again. Even further back, when I was a kid, the local farmer did the same thing with milk bottles – home delivery and empty collection.
Yes.. I remember those days John.. a return to them would be bliss to me. People taking responsibility instead of expecting someone else to do it..
Our milk is delivered daily and the empties taken back and re-used.
We were at our small Farmers market yesterday – the lamb people, who also sell their own eggs, told us they cannot get egg boxes and have to source them from Spain.
WTF?
At the time Sturgeon announced the scheme to recycle single use plastic bottles she also mandated that everyone must wear single use plastic face masks. In addition plastic bottles do something useful while the face masks were performative and deleterious in the long run.