And in a move to boost the reuse of packaging material, he is also looking at a fee-based scheme to encourage producers to design and use packaging that is easier to re-use and/or recycle.
“With a shocking 1.3 million items of litter on our streets at any one time almost half of that littered packaging including drink cans, plastic bottles, confectionery and crisp wrappers we need to move now to tackle this problem,” Minister Poots said.
“So today, alongside England and Wales, I am launching a consultation on options for a Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) for drinks containers including glass bottles, aluminium and steel cans and PET plastic bottles.