With little more than a year until the UK’s Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) goes live, organisations at the heart of its delivery will come together at London Packaging Week to discuss industry readiness and work to be done before October 2027.
The session, 'DRS countdown: from 2026 readiness to 2027 reality', takes place on Wednesday 16 September and brings together Julian Hunt, industry-nominated Non-Executive Director at Exchange for Change; Andy Bagnall, Director General of the British Soft Drinks Association; Ellena Andrews, Senior Corporate Affairs & Circular Economy Policy Executive at the Food and Drink Federation; Naomi Brandon-Bravo, Sustainability Policy Adviser at the British Retail Consortium; and Tom Fiennes, Sustainability Director at Carlsberg Britvic.
The 45-minute discussion will focus on the practical reality of delivering DRS. The panel will discuss current levels of readiness across the system, work that will happen over the next 12 months and consider what success should look like during the scheme’s first year of operation.
From 1 October 2027, consumers will pay a 20p deposit when purchasing drinks in eligible cans and plastic bottles, reclaiming it when the empty container is returned. Behind that relatively simple consumer proposition sits a major transformation encompassing packaging, barcodes, retail infrastructure, reverse vending machines, logistics, data and consumer behaviour.
For Hunt, who has been involved in the DRS journey for much of the past decade, the scale of the transition should not be underestimated.
“What we have to accept is this is going to be probably one of the biggest changes in a generation when you think of waste and packaging and recycling,” he said. “This will be the biggest change that we’ve seen in the UK since kerbside recycling started. It’s on that scale of change.”
Exchange for Change, the industry-led organisation responsible for delivering the scheme across the UK, has itself developed rapidly. Effectively a start-up at the beginning of 2025, it now has a base in Milton Keynes, a leadership team, and a workforce of more than 60 people working towards the October 2027 launch.
“The timetable for delivery of DRS was always going to be challenging, but it’s achievable,” Hunt said. “We’ve got a team of more than 60 in place, and have moved rapidly to bring on board the capabilities and the resources that we need to deliver on the operational plan.”
Work is progressing across material specifications, scheme branding and barcodes, reverse vending machines, IT, logistics and counting infrastructure. But Hunt’s message to businesses is that October 2027 should not be treated as the point at which implementation begins.
“The responsibility is really on the producers,” he said. “They will need to work closely in partnership with their suppliers to get ready because there’s going to be a lot of work around changing packaging.”
For producers, preparations include changes to packaging, branding and barcodes, while retailers must determine how returns will operate across their estates. Managing the transition from existing non-DRS stock will add another layer of complexity.
The breadth of the London Packaging Week panel reflects the coordination required, bringing together those responsible for scheme delivery with drinks producers, food and drink manufacturers and retailers as the countdown accelerates.
“Packaging is a big industry. There are lots of actors, lots of players on all aspects of the scheme, and we’ve all got a role in trying to connect with all of those operators and help them understand this is coming, this is a reality, and these are the things that you need to do to get ready,” Hunt said.
Exchange for Change is already working with more than 50 trade associations and industry bodies and drawing on experience from DRS operators across Europe.
Ultimately, Hunt says the measure of success is much simpler: a consumer buys a drink, pays the deposit, returns the empty container and gets their 20p back.
“Put simply, that is what success looks like from day one. We’ve got to make sure it’s convenient. We’ve got to make sure it works. We’ve got to make sure it’s really easy for consumers from day one and then keep improving that experience after go-live.”
The discussion comes as regulation takes an increasingly prominent place on the London Packaging Week agenda, with PackUK also addressing the next stages of packaging Extended Producer Responsibility as businesses move from understanding major reforms to implementing them in practice.
The session, 'DRS countdown: from 2026 readiness to 2027 reality', takes place from 13:10 to 13:55 on Wednesday 16 September on the FMCG Stage at London Packaging Week 2026.
London Packaging Week takes place on 16 & 17 September 2026 at Excel London, bringing together more than 5,700 packaging professionals, 220+ exhibitors and more than 90 speakers across luxury, beauty, premium drinks and FMCG.
Registration is free for industry professionals and includes access to the full conference programme, exhibition, networking opportunities and feature areas.