To Steve Barclay, Secretary of State for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs

House of Commons

London

SW1A 0AA

Dear Steve Barclay,

As members of the outdoor recreation and conservation community we are dismayed and concerned by the Government’s decision to delay the UK-wide Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) to 2027, announced April 24th 2024.

In 2017 the CEO of Trash Free Trails, Dom Ferris, was part of a delegation who delivered a petition with 330,000 signatures calling for the implementation of an ‘all-in’ DRS to No.10. They were positively received by then-Prime Minister Theresa May and your predecessor Michael Gove, who indicated that their aspirations matched those of the signatories.

This political will was furthered by the Conservative party in 2019, when they made the Deposit Return Scheme a flagship policy. What’s more, we know through our partnership with Red Bull that drinks producers were ready for the Scheme’s introduction in Scotland in 2023.

But this week something has gone awry; that commitment to protect our wild places has slipped with the delay of the Scheme, and the decision to exclude glass from the UK-wide roll out.

Trash Free Trails, alongside Bangor University, are conducting world-leading research into the impacts of litter on recreational trail ecosystems through the State of Our Trails Report (2023). Our data shows that single-use pollution is vastly abundant and causes untold harm to terrestrial wildlife. More than 10% of the items removed and recorded by Trash Free Trails volunteers are single-use drinks containers that would be captured by an ‘all-in’ DRS.

Our research estimates almost a million drinks containers are out there right now, polluting public rights of way across the UK. That’s almost a million single-use drinks containers that could be eradicated and responsibly recycled with the swift introduction of a Deposit Return Scheme. A million items of litter you could clean up.

Most harrowing is the impact of these items upon terrestrial wildlife. One in five animals who interact with single-use pollution will die. Many of these instances are due to entrapment in drinks containers. Huge numbers of keystone species are dying as a direct result of your Government’s resistance to implementing this policy.

As a nationwide community of riders, runners and roamers we rely on trails, parks and green spaces for our wealth, health and happiness. We cannot understand why this extraordinarily effective policy is being watered down and delayed. In DEFRA’s own economic assessment in 2021, it was estimated that introduction of the DRS would save the government £661 million in litter clean-up costs alone.

Why are you continuing to allow drinks containers to pollute our green spaces when you have the solution, one that will also save huge amounts of public money?

We recognise the challenge of creating a unified approach across the UK. But in pushing devolved nations to exclude glass from the Scheme, you are persisting with a half-hearted measure despite widespread support from industry, producers and consumers. The UK is ready for DRS, and we insist that you abandon this delay and bring forward the scheme with all haste.

Yours sincerely,

Trash Free Trails and the here signed individuals, communities and organisations