Delhi mulls ‘deposit return’ scheme for recyclable, non-degradable waste

Delhi plans a Deposit Return Scheme to incentivize recycling of non-biodegradable waste, aiming to reduce litter and improve waste management.

New Delhi

Under the scheme, buyers can get a refund for returning non-biodegradable waste. (Representative photo)

The Delhi government is planning to monetarily incentivise the return of recyclable and non-biodegradable waste under a Deposit Return Scheme (DRS), wherein non-biodegradable items may be priced with a refundable deposit component and buyers can get a refund of the same by returning them at designated points or to shopkeepers, environment minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa said on Tuesday.

The minister said that the environment department has been asked to analyse existing DRS models and identify the best practices across the country and worldwide, and submit a detailed proposal within a month.

“This encourages proper segregation, collection, and recycling of waste, while significantly reducing litter and uncontrolled disposal,” an official aware of the matter said, stating the government will study DRS models in Goa, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

Sirsa said the Delhi government aims to plug the leak of recyclable plastic waste into the environment, adding that a feasibility study for a Delhi-specific DRS, including financial mechanisms, institutional setup, stakeholder roles, and roll-out strategy, will also be carried out by the environment department.

“This scheme has proven its mettle in other states, and Delhi should also look towards adapting it to our unique urban challenges for swift and tangible impact,” Sirsa said, following a high-level meeting with officials from the environment department and other senior officials.

Experts said implementing such a scheme in Delhi will pose its own challenges, given Delhi’s porous boundaries with Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.

“We have seen DRS primarily used for glass bottles - to incentivise people to bring them back, so it can be washed, refilled and reused. Goa is targeting both glass and plastic bottles through DRS, but this also requires the bottler to follow certain norms, and for QR-codes to be scanned at all levels from distribution to retail and consumers. Delhi’s geography and its porous boundaries make it challenging,” said Siddharth Singh, programme manager, Solid Waste Management unit at the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE).

He said that while extended producer responsibility (EPR) is already in place, value needs to be added for the collection of non-biodegradable items, such as tetra packs. “The government will have to create some sort of value for these items, as they cannot be directly reused. Thus, there are no monetary benefits for companies producing these,” Siddarth Singh said.

Plastic waste currently is primarily being managed through an informal network of waste pickers and scrap dealers who manually sort different types of plastic items.

Bharati Chaturvedi, founder and director at Chintan, an NGO working on waste management in Delhi said DRS should only exist for extremely low-value items, such as multilayered packaging. “It if is there for higher value plastic, this is already being picked up by informal workers and not only can this impact the existing informal collection, but it can displace these workers too,” she said.

Government officials said DRS has already been implemented in over 40 countries worldwide, with global models particularly faring well. Among the longest-running DRS models, those in Germany and Sweden have reported achieving the highest collection rates, of up to 96%.