What the scheme now looks like
You pay 20p extra when you buy a drink in a single-use bottle or can, and you get the 20p back when you return the empty container to a return point. That is the whole scheme from the customer's side. Retailers who sell the drinks will host return points, many of them reverse vending machines.
The scope is narrower than Scotland's original design. Containers must be between 150ml and 3 litres and made of PET plastic, steel or aluminium. Glass bottles are outside it entirely, and will carry on going in the recycling bin or the bottle bank.
The scheme administrator is UK Deposit Management Organisation Limited, trading as Exchange for Change, designated after the Scottish Parliament approved the amending regulations on 18 June 2025. In Scotland, SEPA is the regulator.
- Launch date: 1 October 2027
- Deposit: 20p per container
- PET plastic, steel and aluminium
- 150ml to 3 litres
- Glass is excluded
- Administered by Exchange for Change
How we got here
Scotland legislated for a deposit return scheme in 2020 and was due to launch in 2022, then 2023, with glass included and a Scottish administrator. The scheme collapsed in 2023 when the UK Government refused an exclusion from the Internal Market Act for glass, and Scotland paused until a UK-wide scheme could be agreed.
That scheme is the one now landing. The Scottish regulations were amended in 2025 to align the date, the materials and the administrator with England and Northern Ireland, so a can bought in Carlisle and returned in Dumfries behaves the same way.
The practical result is a single 20p deposit across three nations from 1 October 2027. Wales is running its own process and is not part of the same launch.
Cans and bottles by the bin bag?
We sort them out of the load today and they'll be worth 20p each from October 2027. Fixed load prices.
What changes at home
The cans and plastic bottles that currently go in your recycling bin will be worth 20p each. Most people will take them back rather than bin them, which is the point. Councils expect kerbside recycling volumes of those materials to fall, and packaging producers who now pay for those bins expect their bills to move with it.
Nothing changes for glass. Bottles keep going wherever your council sends them today, and our bin colours guide still applies. Nor does anything change for cartons, pouches or plastic film, which are outside the scheme.
A clear-out that turns up bags of cans in a garage or a loft will, from late 2027, be a clear-out that turns up small change. Until then they are just recycling, and we take them with everything else in a house clearance.
What changes for pubs, venues and events
Hospitality has the biggest adjustment. Drinks bought for consumption on the premises are handled through the scheme differently from takeaway sales, and containers returned by customers have to be stored, counted and collected. The scheme design for closed venues is being finalised by the administrator ahead of launch.
Events are the case we know best. A festival site or a wedding marquee currently produces mixed waste with cans and bottles all through it. From October 2027 each of those containers is 20p that either goes back to the scheme or is written off. Segregating them at source becomes worth money, not just good practice — see our events waste management service and the post-festival waste guide.
For a pub or restaurant refit, none of this changes how the old fit-out leaves the building, and our pub and restaurant clearance service is unaffected. What it changes is the bin store you build for the new one.
