Who remembers collecting old bottles of fizzy drink when you were a kid in order to earn a bit more pocket money by claiming a deposit?

I haven’t seen much advertising abut this but the Government are launching a new deposit scheme from October next year for plastic bottles and cans. The idea is that you pay 20p on top of the standard cost of the drink but get it back when you return it to a store for recycling.

In England, the scheme won’t apply to glass bottles (apparently for safety reasons).

Large supermarkets, grocery stores, convenience stores and newsagents selling drinks covered by the scheme will generally have to provide a return point. This can be a staffed/manual return point, or a reverse vending machine (RVM).

The retailer will refund the deposit, potentially by cash, card or voucher.

The expectation is that about 90% of steel and aluminium cans and plastic bottles will be recycled as a result of this new initiative.