The Federation of Independent Retailers (the Fed) has written to senior figures in the Welsh Government, expressing concerns about the lack of progress in moving forward with the Deposit Return Scheme (DRS). 

The president of The Fed in Wales, Mark Dudden, said that Wales is failing to keep pace with the rest of the UK on the initiative, which was created to boost recycling and reduce litter. 

In a letter to the cabinet secretary for climate change and rural affairs, Llyr Gruffydd, Dudden said that independent retailers needed a roadmap outlining how the scheme would be taken forward. 

Dudden wrote that it is “essential for Welsh retailers that any DRS infrastructure has full interoperability with the rest of the UK so as to avoid fraudulent abuse of the DRS.” 

This follows a statement from the British Soft Drinks Association (BSDA) earlier this year, which said that an annual fraud bill of up to £300 million could be possible if people were to exploit the differences between the Welsh scheme and those elsewhere in the UK. 

Speaking in March, the BSDA further commented that the inclusion of glass in Wales’s DRS scheme could drive up prices for consumers. It said that Wales already had a 92% household glass recycling rate. 

Similarly, the Fed reiterated concerns that including glass in the scheme may lead to additional weight and an increased risk of injury from broken bottles. 

It pointed to the success of the DRS in Ireland, which was introduced in 2024 for plastic bottles and metal cans, but not glass.