Kickstart: Latest failure of UK bottle bill a pain in the glass

Glass bottles are delaying the third attempt to launch a bottle deposit program in the United Kingdom.

The Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) was first announced in 2018 and was to go into effect in August 2023. Then it was pushed back to 2024, then 2025 and now it's scheduled for 2027, our sister paper Sustainable Plastics writes.

At issue are the 5 billion glass bottles sold in the U.K. out of the 31 billion single-use drink containers consumers buy each year. (Plastic accounts for 12 billion bottles and another 14 million are cans.)

The U.K. system would have applied only to plastic and metal containers, but officials in Wales — one of the four countries within the U.K. — are insisting it must also apply to glass bottles. Officials in London have said it was too complicated and expensive to include glass, although plenty of other bottle bills cover glass successfully, of course.

"It's a huge disappointment that [DRS] isn't going to start for another three years and isn't going to cover glass bottles," said Sandy Luk, chief executive of the Marine Conservation Society. "For our ocean's sake, we can't keep kicking the can — or bottle — down the road. We call on the U.K. government to speed up this law and to follow Wales' ambition to include plastic, metal and glass."

With just the four countries within the U.K. finding it hard to come to an agreement on a bottle bill, it shouldn't come as a surprise that negotiators for a United Nations plastics treaty struggled to wrap up the latest round of talks — officially called the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) — in Ottawa, Ontario.

In fact, while the discussions were scheduled to end on April 29, they extended into the early hours of April 30. Photos shared via the United Nations Environment Programme showed delegates huddled around conference tables after midnight until the declaration: "Plastics may last forever, but this INC should not," according to Earth Negotiations Bulletin, a division of the International Institute for Sustainable Development.

Plastics News' Steve Toloken writes that while no final agreement was reached, officials did agree to smaller planning meetings to help narrow down language for consideration at the next round of talks in Busan, South Korea.

Mattel Inc.'s Matchbox brand is going green.

The El Segundo, Calif.-based toymaker said in an April 30 announcement that its new toy-sized version of a Mercedes-Benz G-Class will be made from recycled metal and "a minimum" of 81 percent recycled plastics using a mass balance approach "highlighting how Matchbox is evolving its product offerings."

While the bulk of the die-cast car is made of metal, it still uses plastics to mimic windows, wheels and other parts.

In addition, cars in Matchbox's Moving Parts series out this year will use a minimum of 51 percent recycled plastics, also through mass balance.

"We can drive toward a better future together as we stay committed to using more sustainable materials while simultaneously bringing fans realistic replicas of their favorite cars," Roberto Stanichi, global head of vehicles at Mattel, said in a news release.