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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if his Department will make an assessment of the potential effect on consumer vehicular emissions of his proposals on a deposit return scheme in comparison to existing kerbside collections.

The Government’s proposals to introduce a deposit return scheme for drinks containers recognise the need to ensure convenience and wide availability of return points for consumers, ensuring they can easily fit the scheme into their everyday lives. With this in mind, our current analysis has been designed with sufficient return points in place to reflect the policy proposal that deposits can be redeemed in settings that fit different consumer daily routines, thus avoiding the need for consumers to make additional journeys purely for the sake of returning their drinks containers. On this basis, there is no intention to carry out further assessment of consumer vehicular emissions at this time.