The Scottish Deposit Return Scheme and how Sellar will help
From August 16th 2023, Scotland will implement a Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) for bottles and cans, aiming to give producers and brand owners a vital role in responding to climate change. Drinks producers and brand owners will have a legal responsibility to manage taking deposits & collection of any container covered by the scheme.
The Quick Facts
Every producer or brand owner or importer needs to be registered if they want to sell or distribute products in Scotland no matter where they are in the UK
This affects every bottle or can between 50ml & 3L in size
You will need to charge a 20p deposit on each container
Drinks producers & brand owners need to be registered by 1st March 2023.
You will need to register every year if you want to be part of the scheme & pay the first year’s registration costs straight away
What are your options?
A stance that seems to be popular at the moment is choosing not to participate in the scheme, as there are concerns about the implementation and costs associated. There are also questions about whether the scheme will go ahead due to questions from trade bodies and the UK government about the viability of the scheme.
However, if you do wish to participate you have two options:
Registering directly with the Scottish Environment Protection agency (SEPA)
Registering with the the “Scheme Administrator” Circularity Scotland who will, in theory, be able to fulfil some of your legal obligations on your behalf.
Should you choose to register directly with SEPA, there are extra legal obligations you will need to take into account as set out in the legislation.
The deadline for registration is March the 1st 2023
What we’re doing to help
At Sellar, we want to make selling into the trade as simple as possible. Implementing support for the Scottish Deposit Return Scheme is just one of those tools. As we near the launch of the scheme, you may see a few changes in the app -
We’ll automatically apply the deposit for you when we know the customer is in Scotland by using their postcode. This will work with both orders coming from buyers, and orders you process on their behalf.
You will have the flexibility to add the deposit to orders where appropriate ie. for a wholesaler ordering stock for both Scottish & English customers to an address in England.
We’ll generate a monthly report, detailing the number of containers that you have taken a deposit for to help you to fulfil your reporting obligations easily. You’ll be able to make edits for returned/unsaleable stock.
If you don’t want to participate in the scheme and choose not to sell your products to Scottish customers, you’ll be able to block Scottish Customers from being able to order from you.
What we need from you
Feedback - we’d love to hear from you if you have any suggestions on how we can help make compliance with the DRS as smooth as possible. We’d especially love to hear from partners in Scotland. Email Ali at ali@sellar.io to discuss further or give feedback.
There’ll be further updates to come on this front as we all learn more 🙃