Abdul’s DRS challenge

Many of you will be aware that retailer Abdul Majid is currently in the middle of legal proceedings challenging the legality of the Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) Retailer Handling Fee proposed by Circularity Scotland Limited (CSL).

That challenge has upset a few people and has also led to a slew of often inaccurate press reports. With that in mind, I met up with Abdul and SGF CEO Pete Cheema to find out what’s really behind this legal action.

First off, both Abdul and Pete were at pains to make it clear that they remain committed to a world-class DRS in Scotland and are fully behind local retailers playing an instrumental role in an initiative that will mark a step-change in how Scotland approaches recycling specifically and sustainability in general.

But the caveat is that they want one that is ‘fit for purpose’. In Abdul’s case, fit for purpose for his store in Bellshill and in Pete’s case, fit for purpose for the thousands of local retailers his organisation is charged with representing.

And by ‘fit for purpose’, they mean one that is indeed ‘cost-neutral’ as set out in the original Bill and as reiterated in public on several occasions since by Lorna Slater, Minister for Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity.

Abdul’s contention is that the Retailer Handling Fee is insufficient to allow cost neutrality and the lack of transparency around how the Fee has been calculated is at the heart of the problem. As Abdul puts it: “If CSL gets the Fee badly wrong, there’s potential for retailers to be wiped out” and for communities across Scotland to be left with no access to a local store.

There are a host of other problems that Abdul and SGF have with DRS, which we will explore in more length in next month’s issue – but the legality of the Handling Fee is what Abdul is challenging – and he thinks he is likely to win his case.

It’s easy to understand why CSL publishing how the Fee was worked out would have been an open invite to all and sundry to tear it to shreds. But the consequence of not publishing how it was worked out, from Abdul’s point of view, is that our sector is left in the dark footing at least part of the bill for implementing a Scheme that it had no choice in adopting and which will fail in one of its core objectives on day one: being cost-neutral to retailers.

Antony Begley, Publishing Director, SLR