Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs written question – answered at on 8 June 2026.
Euan Stainbank
Labour, Falkirk
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that (a) aluminium and (b) other materials collected under (i) the Deposit Return Scheme and (ii) Simpler Recycling are retained for (A) domestic and (B) European recycling.
Mary Creagh
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Together, the Collection and Packaging Reforms – Simpler Recycling, Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging (pEPR) and a Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) – will make recycling clearer and easier, which will help to reduce contamination, better preserve material value, and help to grow demand for recyclables. This should mean more recycled material in the products we buy and should support investment in the UK recycling industry.
Under the DRS, the Deposit Management Organisation (Exchange for Change) are responsible for ensuring that material collected through the DRS is recycled. The regulations also include a “right of first refusal” that allows producers first access to purchase collected material at market value, encouraging brands to source material from the UK market to use as recycled content.
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Secretary of State was originally the title given to the two officials who conducted the Royal Correspondence under Elizabeth I. Now it is the title held by some of the more important Government Ministers, for example the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
