The British Soft Drinks Association president, William Watkins, has said that the next twelve months will be “pivotal” on an environmental front for the soft drinks industry. 

At the BSDA industry lunch, Watkins said that the soft drinks industry is “committed to a more sustainable future”. 

Watkins noted that the BSDA has been “working towards the creation of a UK-wide Deposit Return Scheme.” Likewise, Watkins said that they have supported “the introduction of an effective EPR.” 

“Last year, soft drinks manufacturers sold 15.3 billion litres of soft drinks packaged in plastic and glass bottles, aluminium cans, pouches, and cartons. We put this product on the market and take our responsibility to ensure it’s recycled again seriously,” he said. 

Extended Producer Responsibility 

Watkins expressed his initial disappointment at the EPR, noting that the strategy impacted glass packaging unfairly. 

However, he continued: “We are delighted that Defra has recognised that using purely weight in calculating EPR fees has disproportionately affected glass in a negative way.” 

Therefore: “The latest illustrative fees have taken account of the fact that for a typical local authority 33% of recycling material is glass, but by volume, glass only accounts for 8%. This has led to a decrease in EPR fees.” 

Nonetheless, he added that cartons are also “enormously affected by EPR”. 

He said: “We ask that in any calculations, it is essential that EPR is fair across all packaging formats to ensure that no material is being unfairly penalised.” 

He also noted that EPR will “generate north of a million pounds for local authorities right across the country” and that “we believe producers should have a degree of oversight as to how that money is spent”. 

Deposit Return Scheme 

Moving on to “the other elephant lurking in the room,” Watkins turned his speech to the Deposit Return Scheme. 

“The DRS is scheduled to go live in October 2027, and I am delighted to report that important work has already started to begin the process of setting up a deposit management organisation. 

“This is really important because if you get this right, it can turbocharge recycling rates of all our packaging upwards of 90%.” 

With this said, Watkins expressed concerns about the DRS. 

Primarily, “A key concern for us is that any system must be interoperable across all four nation states. 

“It is disappointing, to put it mildly, that the Welsh Government has decided to be an outlier and include glass, and not even all glass, only soft drinks and beer, leaving wine and spirits outside. 

“All of this adds to the confusion and the complexity,” Watkins said.