An update on our campaign for a Deposit Return Scheme on plastic bottles.
This campaign has progressed well over the last few months. Some background research has been carried out. Following this it has been decided that it would work best as a national level campaign rather than a local level campaign as it will be more feasible to implement and fund this way. We have also had a Monday night campaigns meeting in which we voted for the campaign name and chose ‘Have you got the bottle?’. We then allocated roles to those who kindly volunteered to help and they have now started to carry these out.
At this stage the tasks include some research into statistics on plastic bottle waste and plastic bottle deposit return schemes in other countries as well as making contact with other environmental groups to ask for their support. Thank you to everyone who is already helping or has already offered to help. There’s still time to get involved so if you would like to then please email jodie@birminghamfoe.org.uk
Another exciting development has been that we have met with a contact at the Canal and River Trust. Thank you to John Newson for setting this up. The meeting was very positive and the Canal and River Trust seem keen to work with us. We discussed how they could do this by spreading the word to their members. We also looked at how we could work together to create and run a pilot deposit return scheme on plastic bottles.
We have also taken great heart from the decision of the Scottish government to implement a Deposit Return Scheme for plastic bottles following an effective campaign for this in Scotland and a report by Zero Waste Scotland into the proposal. This is really positive news not only for Scotland but also for us in the UK as the way has been paved for us to implement a similar scheme.
Thank you very much to everyone who has been working hard to get this campaign off the ground. We’ve already come a long way with it and I’m confident that the foundations are laid for the campaign to continue to develop. Onwards and upwards!
