Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the impact of excluding glass from the forthcoming Deposit Return Scheme on the (a) proportion of street litter that is glass and (b) glass recycling rate.

The Government has consulted twice on the introduction of a Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) and given careful consideration to the materials that should be part of the scheme. Feedback from stakeholders including representatives of the glass industry, raised concerns that including glass in a DRS could reduce recycling, reduce the products that can be made from recycled glass and increase overall carbon emissions, as well as requiring more complex reverse vending machines, and causing a handling risk to both residents and shop workers. Instead we will capture glass under Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging and continue to collect and recycle high levels from the kerbside. We assess this will deliver a recycling rate for all glass packaging of 84% by 2033.