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All return points use the same process. Hospitality falls into two categories. I am sorry, but this is about to get horribly technical. There is closed-loop hospitality and open-loop hospitality. If you go to a small cafe, such as the local Greggs, for your sausage roll and bottled juice, you will take that bottle away. That is an open loop. Under the scheme, because customers take bottles away from that business, it is an open loop and it is obliged to be a return point unless it is exempt. A small cafe or Greggs bakery, for example, have probably got very clear grounds for exemption because it cannot have broken glass on the premises. It would probably apply for exemption on health and safety grounds, meaning that it would not operate as a return point.

Equally, it might be that the small bakery is in a parade of shops that has a larger convenience store at the end, so it might decide to ask the convenience store to take its returns. It would then get an exemption on the basis that there is a return point within the same parade of shops. It is for those businesses to make the right choice for themselves.

Closed-loop venues are the other type of hospitality venue. For example, you might be at a restaurant and order a bottle of wine with your dinner. You would not take that bottle away with you when you leave the venue, however much you might wish to. That bottle will not incur a deposit, because you will not take it away. However, the venue will have paid a deposit when buying the bottle from its wholesaler, so it will need to get its deposit back. It will do that through a closed-loop system. For that system, Biffa will collect materials separately. That process does not affect the consumer.

We are starting to get into technical matters, but those are two different ways in which hospitality venues can manage the process.

No, that is not right. Closed-loop hospitality venues are not return points. A restaurant that serves drinks to customers at their table and does not give them the bottles to take away is not obliged to be a return point, whereas a cafe or small bakery—

It is common for both local shops and the big shops to take returns, so that consumers can decide where they want to make returns.

I do not agree with the member’s representation that small businesses will be disproportionately impacted. The measures that we have put in place have been designed to support small producers in particular. I can go through them again. One of the measures that we have put in place to support small producers is proportionate producer fees, so that small producers will pay the same as large producers, proportionally, because the fee is charged per container. There are, similarly, cash flow measures specifically to help small producers.

When it comes to our small retailers, the fees that will be paid for operating manual return points are the highest in the world for small retailers: our small retailers who operate manual return points will be better off than their compatriots around the world. With our scheme, we are doing more for small businesses than other highly successful schemes around the world are doing. Therefore, I do not agree at all with the member’s representation of the scheme.

Absolutely. The scheme, as it will look on 16 August, will probably look quite different 18 months down the line. When these sorts of schemes launch, there is a first stage—what we call the cut-over period—that is always challenging. In this case, most of what you have in your house, most of the litter in the streets and so on will not at that point be scheme articles. If, after 16 August, you do your citizen’s duty by picking up a can at the side of the road and taking it to a return point, the can will be rejected. It will not be a scheme article because it was sold before the date.

During the cut-over period, some scheme articles will be in circulation; however, quite a lot of material that is not scheme articles will be in circulation, too, and it will take a number of weeks for scheme articles to become predominant. A big part of what we have to manage, therefore, is the ramp-up into the scheme. There are tried and tested ways of doing that, and there are learnings that we can take from other countries. It will be a challenging period, and our communications to consumers must be clear so that customers understand why the bottle that they bought on 17 August can be returned whereas the one that they bought on 15 August cannot.

That is definitely challenging for us to manage, because we all want people’s first experience of the scheme to be a positive one. We want them to have their bottle accepted, to get their 20p back and to spend that on their shopping or whatever they wish. The cut-over period will be absolutely critical.

Moreover, as those materials gradually ramp up, we will be able to see consumer behaviour. It goes back to the convener’s earlier point: does the consumer tend to bring things back to the big shops, or do they use a mix of small and large shops? How does it work? Biffa and Circularity Scotland will have to be very reactive and dynamic, and we will be working with them on processes and mechanisms that will allow them to deal with any small business that says, “Oh my goodness—my bins are full! Biffa, come and get them,” and to be able to update things so that people can say, “Do you know what? I thought that we were going to get 10,000 items a week back, but we’re getting only 3,000. We need to adjust our schedule.”

There will have to be a period of adjustment and optimisation as the scheme settles in, and, as a result, I would expect what you have suggested to be the case. I expect that communities will tell us, “We have no return point that’s convenient for us. How can we get things collected?” We will have to be dynamic in addressing those sorts of issues. It is my intention, therefore, to facilitate some sort of reaction force so that people and businesses know whom to call when their bins are overflowing or they cannot return things and so that there is a process by which people can find out how to get their 20p back.

The scheme will ramp up and adapt to things over the first year. In fact, the recycling targets that we have set will come into effect after a year—or perhaps two years; I will see whether that needs to be corrected—in recognition of the fact that we will not have 90 per cent recycling on day 1. As the scheme beds in, we will work towards that 90 per cent recycling target.

We already know that 95 per cent of materials, by volume, are signed up to the scheme. The way to counteract any risk is to bring all producers online so that they can continue to sell in Scotland. All the measures that we are using to support producers to sign up to the scheme, including cash-flow measures, labelling measures and any further measures that we agree with them, are meant to do exactly that—to allow that variety of producers to continue to sell in Scotland.

The labelling measure is of particular interest when it comes to the importation of wines. It was a specific ask from our wine importers, because you can imagine the difficulty if they were importing only 500 bottles of wine from a winery in France. They would not want to have to put a Scottish label on that number of bottles, which is quite reasonable. That is exactly the kind of situation for which the labelling measure was designed. Our estimate is that about 15,000 products will use the sticky label solution.

It is absolutely not the vision that our products will be restricted. We are working to continue to have a wide variety of products on the market.

That is no problem. I will tackle both of Jackie Dunbar’s questions.

The Scottish biodiversity strategy ties in with other strategies. It is essential that biodiversity considerations are mainstreamed in all our policy development, and that is one of our key aims. Given the breadth of matters that the Government deals with, there is a wide range of strategies and plans to address issues in particular sectors. The biodiversity strategy provides a clear vision and set of outcomes that all of our policies must help to achieve. The environment strategy for Scotland presents a whole-of-Government approach to tackling the climate and nature crises by creating an overarching framework for Scotland as well as strategies and plans on the environment and climate change, and by strengthening the connections between environmental policies and policies across Government. It helps us to identify priorities and opportunities and to drive the transformative change that we need.

We know that healthy biodiversity underpins our prosperity, wellbeing and ability to reach net zero. I know that all the committee members are aware, because of the evidence that you have taken, that we need to mainstream this piece. Tackling biodiversity cannot be done in a silo; it needs to be done across all of society.

Specifically on wild salmon, they are an indicator species, so things that we do to protect wild salmon will also protect other species that have similar life cycles or share their natural environment, such as those that Jackie Dunbar mentioned.

As members will know, wild salmon are in decline. In response to the decline of those populations, in January 2022 we published Scotland’s wild salmon strategy, which is a collective vision for flourishing populations of wild Atlantic salmon. In that, we set a high level of ambition and a direction of travel. We followed up the strategy with an implementation plan, which was published last month, and which sets out more than 60 actions that we will take over the next five years to protect and restore salmon populations. The strategy and plan were developed in close collaboration with stakeholder groups, including representatives from Government, NGOs and agencies. We are clear that positive outcomes can be achieved only through a co-ordinated and collaborative approach.

I have been lucky enough to visit some of the nature restoration work that is being done along some of the rivers, such as removing weirs and, where the weirs cannot be removed, putting in passes to allow the salmon past, and of course those will apply to other species as well.

I want to mention another great river restoration project. One problem that some rivers in Scotland have is that they are too clean—there are no trees along the banks, there is nothing in the water, and they run too fast, too clear and too hot, because the sun shines on them all the time. This particular project takes fallen trees and embeds them in the riverbed. That not only slows the water but creates shaded spots and eddies where fish can spawn and invertebrates can breed. That is the kind of practical on-the-ground action on which the nature restoration fund is having an impact and that specifically targets those important species.

Schools may interact with the deposit return scheme in several ways. Large schools that have, for example, a cafeteria that sells drinks would be part of the scheme. They would charge the 20p, as any shop or cafeteria of that style would, and they would have an obligation under the scheme to decide whether they would operate as a return point. They would have the same options as any other cafeteria or similar venue: to operate as a manual return point, to install a reverse vending machine or to apply for an exemption from being a return point based on health and safety grounds or any of the other grounds that are available.

Schools that, for example, do free school meals and provide a free bottle have a couple of options. They could run as a closed-loop system, as many restaurants will. For example, when you buy a bottle of wine in a restaurant, you do not take that bottle away with you—the restaurant takes it back—so you will not pay a deposit on it. That is called a closed-loop system. If schools were to offer an open-loop system with free school meals, they would have to incorporate the price of the deposit in the cost of the meal, because the child would be able to take the container away and collect the 20p when they returned it.

There are different ways in which schools may interact with the scheme. Of course, if schools moved away from using single-use plastics as a way of providing drinks, specifically water, that they are required to provide, they would not be required to participate in the deposit return scheme.

The member raises excellent points. Those are exactly the sorts of tools that we have as we move towards a circular economy and begin to get rid of waste. We are talking particularly about plastic waste, but waste of any materials or energy in our society is no good.

The extended producer responsibility scheme for plastic is a UK-wide initiative. It was two weeks ago, I think, that we passed at the committee the Scottish statutory instrument to start collecting data for the scheme. From 2024, large packaging producers will need to report on what their packaging is made of and how much packaging they produce—that sort of thing—and in 2025 they will pay fees based on how much packaging they produce. Those fees will be collected and distributed to local authorities to help them pay for recycling. It is another producer responsibility scheme in which the cost of handling materials at the end of their use will be passed to the producers of the materials, rather than being borne by the public purse. It is an exciting initiative that will, I hope, transform our recycling and the design of packaging materials, because it will incentivise producers of packaging to use more sustainable materials, more recyclable materials, and, I hope, less material altogether. It will be advantageous to them to do that under the fee scheme.

The other thing that you touched on was the circular economy bill, which is largely about establishing new powers. One of the things that was consulted on for the bill was powers to put charges on single-use items, and one of the things that we will look at next in the single-use space is single-use beverage cups. The bill is intended to establish powers so that we can be adaptable as we go forward and use targeted approaches, much like was done with plastic bags under our current powers. We know how effective that was in reducing litter and damage to the environment.

Callum Isted’s petition is specifically about a proposal to replace single-use bottles, which were what were being used in his school. Many schools already have in place solutions to that, such as water fountains or jug and cup schemes. That provision is already in place and we do not want to solve a problem that has already been solved in many schools. We know that schools are working towards the sustainability objective. We also have in place national programmes to tackle single-use plastics, such as our deposit return scheme. The process to move away from single-use plastics is well under way.

I recognise Callum Isted’s hard work on the issue and the work that he has done with his school, but it is not necessarily the correct solution for every school, and it is up to schools and local authorities to put in place the correct solution for them.