Will the British public use a deposit return scheme?

In a recent “qualitative” survey with 64 UK grocery shoppers, we asked whether they would prefer to use a deposit return scheme (DRS) or continue with their current practice in terms of how they dispose of their used plastic bottles and drinks cans.

Of the 64 people, 46 said they would prefer to continue with their current practice, 16 said they would prefer to use a DRS, and 2 said they would not mind either way.

Our methodology involved asking respondents to write their preference, and reasons for it, in their own words. They were not asked to select answers from pre-coded lists.

In the research we explained a DRS with the introductory text below.

Thinking about plastic bottles and drink cans…

Some retailers are thinking about charging customers a small extra amount on these items, which they would get back when they return the used bottles/cans to the store.

The thinking is that this will increase recycling of such items.

And then the question itself was:

If you had a choice of continuing with your current arrangement, or bagging up your used plastic bottles and drinks cans, taking them to the supermarket and putting them in a recycling bin, which would you prefer to do? 

Here is what two people who favoured a DRS, wrote.

“ because it's not a huge ask and I would feel that i am doing my bit for the planet - as long as i knew it was actually being recycled ” Female, 59 yrs old, South East

“ I would take them to the supermarket because I have higher confidence in them recycling. ” Female, 23 yrs old, Scotland

And here is what two people who did not favour a DRS wrote:

“ I would prefer to continue recycling as I do, by putting it in my recycling bins at home because it's easier and more convenient. ” Female, 36 yrs old, North East

“ I'm lazy because it is convenient and would require changing my habits. Because it seems that it would be too much bother to have a separate bag for putting in used bottles and cans to then take to the supermarket. ” Female, 28 yrs old, South East

When reading these answers, and considering that most respondents did not favour a DRS, it’s important to note the wording of our question.

Interestingly, when we ran a soft launch before using the question above, in which we asked a similar, but shorter, question (which did not include reference to bagging up the bottles and cans) there was somewhat more support for a DRS (though it was a small sample). This shows the importance of the question wording.

We don’t believe this research is the last word on public attitudes to deposit return schemes. But we think it shows that if you ask people about them, using an open-ended question which includes sufficient detail about what they involve, you get interesting results. And these might be at odds with results from surveys which use closed questions.

Over the coming days I will publish more examples of what our respondents wrote.