Exchange for Change, the organisation delivering the deposit return scheme (DRS) across England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, has set the return handling fees that will be paid to return point operators ahead of the scheme’s launch in October 2027.
Manual return points – stores where customers return empty single-use drink containers over the counter – will receive 3p per container.
Automatic return points – where shoppers use an automated reverse vending machine – will operate on a tiered structure, with Tier 1 set at 5p per container for up to 225,000 in-scope returns annually, and Tier 2 set at 1.3p per container for annual in-scope returns above that threshold.
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The scheme will operate on a tiered basis across manual and automatic return points, covering both low and high-volume operators.
The return handling fee (RHF) will be reviewed early in 2027 before the scheme goes live, and then reviewed annually using data collected during operation. This will include information from producers and retailers to ensure assumptions and inputs are refined over time.
Russell Davies, chief executive of Exchange For Change, said the RHF reflects the “complexities” of the UK retail landscape and “ensures” the scheme remains in balance. “The UK’s retail landscape is unique in the world, spanning large supermarket chains,” he said. “Medium-sized franchises and a very high ratio of small and independent convenience stores compared to other nations.
“This means the network of return points across the UK will be extensive, and the nature of collections will range from small convenience stores manually collecting and returning a small number of containers, through to large multinational supermarket chains operating multiple reverse vending machines that collect several thousand containers each week at every store.”
