The SNP can’t blame Westminster for Lorna Slater’s recycling disaster

It takes mismanagement of epic proportions to turn a relatively simple recycling scheme for bottles and cans into a major governmental crisis. It takes Herculean hypocrisy to then blame it on Westminster. Scotland’s deposit return scheme (DRS), which plans to place a recoverable 20p on every single use container at the point of purchase, has been in a state of perpetual crisis for years, largely through the incompetence of the Green circular economy minister, Lorna Slater — well named because of her gyrations over the policy. 

But now Humza Yousaf has decided to delay the introduction of the DRS until the UK scheme comes on stream around 2025. This means that Scotland is effectively scrapping its own scheme, even though it had the option of turning it into a pilot for the UK deposit return scheme. The Scottish government could now be liable for compensation claims from firms which had spent money of preparing for the scheme to be introduced this August.