Machines coming to Falkirk which will give you cash for your bottles and cans

Thrifty Falkirk residents will soon be searching their homes, scouring the streets – and possibly even raking bins – to find cans and plastic and glass bottles.

Under Zero Waste Scotland’s pioneering new national scheme, shoppers will pay a 20p deposit when buying drinks contained in single-use plastic or glass bottles and aluminium or steel cans. They can then get their money back when they return their empty container to special reverse vending machines for recycling.

And if they chuck them thoughtlessly away, they will lose their deposit and someone else will have the chance to collect the 20p if they return the bottle.

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The Scottish Government is expected to give the scheme the go ahead later this year.

At the moment people in Falkirk go through more than 20 million plastic bottles every year and around 369,000 of them are littered in Falkirk each year.

With a 20p incentive not to throw away your empties, Zero Waste Scotland anticipates a 90 per cent reduction in litter for the materials included in the scheme and with plastic bottles only one of the materials included in the scheme, the overall impact on litter is expected to be even higher.

Jill Farrell, Zero Waste Scotland chief operating officer, said: “We all hate seeing empty bottles and cans littering our streets and green spaces. The great thing about Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme is it will give people a 20p incentive to do the right thing with their empty bottles – take them back for recycling, rather than risk them ending up on our streets or in our rivers.”

Visit www.depositreturn.scot for more.