WELSH Government's proposed Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) has been described as having 'too many unanswered questions'. 

Members of Flintshire Council’s environment and economy overview committee met today (June 13) to discuss the logistics and practicalities of implementing the scheme in the county. 

A DRS is a system which would see an extra fee charged when people buy a drinks bottle or can. This deposit is refunded when the item is returned for recycling.

The Welsh Government is aiming to introduce a Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) across Wales in 2025.

Plans have received strong support and The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has confirmed it will work with industry, Welsh Government, and the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) in Northern Ireland, to now set up the scheme. The expected start date for the scheme is October 2025.

A scheme was set to be introduced in Scotland next year, where the charge would be 20p, but this has been pushed back to October 2025 due to a dispute between the Scottish and UK Governments about the inclusion of glass products in the scheme.

At today's environment and economy overview committee concerns were raised over the logistics and affect the scheme will have on low-income families amid the cost-of-living crisis. 

The report, authored by the council’s chief officer for Streetscene, says: “By creating a deposit return scheme, the aim is to increase the recycling rate of drinks containers and reduce littering.

“It is also believed that introducing such a scheme will help change consumer behaviour to encourage higher levels of drinks container recycling."

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Councillor David Evans, chair of environment and economy overview and scrutiny committee, said: "There's so many unanswered questions with this at the moment.

"I was just thinking when I was reading the report previously about the logistics and the difficulty of the individuals purchasing a monthly shop having all these containers that they would normally get rid of on a week-by-week basis, but would have to then store them to return them to the store at some point."

Cllr Evans also pointed out concerns with the technology to make the DRS work with regards to how the deposit would be returned to the consumer, citing whether it would be a system reliant upon smartphones.

He added: "That's reliant on everybody having a device of sorts, as somebody mentioned if it's a debit card, then that might be a suggestion.

"I think low-income families will struggle with this. That 10% of people that don't comply with this scheme will be the low-income families that end up putting it in their blue tub for us to collect on a weekly basis.

"I think there's still a lot more questions and answers to come from this and I don't think they're all here at the moment."

Cllr Dan Rose also expressed his concerns over the DRS' affect on families struggling with the cost-of-living crisis. 

"I've got concerns in terms of the current cost-of-living crisis, in terms of increasing the cost of some of the containers."

Cllr Vicky Perfect was quick to praise the proposals: "It's not a new scheme, we've been down that avenue before but I think it's well worth us taking it up again, it will save some things going to landfill, I just think it's really good."

Upon conclusion of the meeting, the committee agreed to amend the report which stated "that Scrutiny notes the contents of the report and supports the proposals to deliver a Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) for Wales," to remove the word 'supports' due to the nature of the questions which remained unanswered.

Cllr Evans said: "I struggle with the word 'supports' at the moment as there are too many unanswered questions."