The 20p Change Coming to Every Can and Bottle: What the UK Deposit Return Scheme Means for You
From 1 October 2027, buying a can or plastic bottle in the UK is going to feel slightly different. And although relatively few consumers are talking about it yet, it represents one of the biggest changes to the way packaged drinks are bought and recycled in decades.
Pick up a can of Coke from a vending machine. Grab a bottle of water from a shop. Buy an energy drink on the way to work.
From 1 October 2027, most of those purchases will have something new attached to them: a 20p refundable deposit.
That doesn't sound particularly dramatic.
But multiply 20p by the billions of cans and bottles sold across the UK every year and suddenly it becomes a very significant change — not just for drinks manufacturers and retailers, but for vending operators, workplaces and, ultimately, everyone buying a drink.
And it will introduce another piece of equipment that we're likely to become very familiar with over the next few years:
the Reverse Vending Machine.
So, what exactly is changing?
The new Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) is designed to encourage significantly more drinks containers to be returned for recycling rather than thrown into general waste or discarded as litter.
From 1 October 2027, a 20p deposit will be added when consumers purchase an eligible drink.
Finish the drink, return the empty container to an authorised return point and you can reclaim your 20p.
In England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, the scheme will cover most single-use drinks containers made principally from:
aluminium
steel
PET plastic
Containers will generally need to be between 150ml and 3 litres in capacity. Glass isn't included in the initial scheme in England, Scotland or Northern Ireland; Wales is taking a somewhat different approach to glass.
The purpose is straightforward: give the container a financial value and there is much more incentive for it to find its way back into the recycling system.
The UK Government says the scheme is intended to reduce litter, increase recycling rates and produce a reliable stream of high-quality material capable of being turned back into new drinks containers.
What will happen to the price of a drink?
This is probably the change consumers will notice first.
The 20p isn't technically an increase in the underlying price of the drink. It's a deposit sitting on top of it, which you can recover.
For example, imagine a bottle of drink currently costs:
£1.50
Once DRS applies, the transaction would effectively become:
Drink: £1.50
Refundable deposit: £0.20
Amount paid: £1.70
Return the empty bottle to an authorised return point and the 20p can be reclaimed.
Don't return it, and you've effectively paid £1.70.
That distinction is important.
The drinks supply chain will also change behind the scenes. Producers, importers, wholesalers and retailers will all have responsibilities for handling the deposit as products move through the supply chain, while retailers will pay the deposit when purchasing eligible products and charge it when selling them.
So although consumers will see the most obvious change at the till or vending machine, there is a substantial new financial, logistical and reporting system being built underneath it.
And yes — vending machines are affected too
This is where things become particularly interesting for our industry.
A vending machine selling an eligible bottle or can will need to account for the deposit in the selling price.
So if you're used to paying £1.20, £1.50 or £2.00 for a bottled or canned drink from a vending machine, from October 2027 you'll see that additional 20p deposit reflected in what you pay.
But the vending machine selling you the drink doesn't necessarily have to be the machine that gives you your 20p back.
Instead, containers will be returned through a national network of registered return points.
And one of the technologies that will make that practical is something called a Reverse Vending Machine, or RVM.
A vending machine — backwards
Most of us understand a vending machine.
Put money in.
Choose a product.
Take the product out.
A Reverse Vending Machine essentially reverses that process.
Put the empty container in.
The machine identifies it.
The container is accepted for recycling.
You receive your deposit back.
Modern RVMs can scan and validate eligible containers before accepting them. The machines can then compact the containers for storage and issue the customer with a redeemable deposit voucher.
If you've travelled in countries where deposit return schemes are already established, you may have seen them in supermarkets and shopping centres.
By the end of this decade, they'll be a much more familiar sight here too.
Where will we return our bottles and cans?
Many supermarkets, grocery stores, convenience stores and newsagents selling drinks covered by the scheme will be required to provide a return point unless they qualify for an exemption.
That return point could be operated manually, or it could use an RVM.
Smaller urban retailers with less than 100m² of retail space are automatically exempt from having to operate a return point, although they can participate voluntarily. Other businesses may also be able to apply for exemptions depending upon their location and circumstances.
But the system isn't restricted to supermarkets.
Other organisations will be able to operate voluntary return points, including:
workplaces, schools, gyms, sports centres, community facilities, hospitality venues and businesses operating vending machines.
And that's where we think things could become particularly interesting.
Could your workplace eventually have a Reverse Vending Machine?
Quite possibly.
Imagine a large manufacturing site with several hundred employees.
There might already be vending machines throughout the building selling hundreds of cans and bottles every day.
At the moment, those empty containers might go into recycling bins — and inevitably some end up in general waste.
From October 2027, every eligible container potentially represents 20p sitting in somebody's hand.
Suddenly there's a reason to return it.
A strategically positioned Reverse Vending Machine could allow staff to return their containers before leaving the workplace rather than taking them home or finding another return point.
And because RVMs can validate and compact containers, they potentially provide a much more structured method of dealing with the volume of packaging generated by busy sites.
H2O Vend is already looking at RVM technology
For us, this isn't something we're intending to start thinking about in September 2027.
We're already investigating the Reverse Vending Machine market and looking at the technology that will be required to operate within the UK scheme.
There are still details developing as the infrastructure is built, and importantly, machines used within the scheme will need to meet the appropriate technical requirements.
Exchange for Change — the not-for-profit Deposit Management Organisation responsible for delivering the scheme — is establishing the standards and infrastructure that will sit behind it. Its guidance explains that approved RVMs will need to meet scheme requirements covering areas such as container identification, validation and handling.
So rather than rushing to put a machine into the market simply because it can swallow a bottle, we're interested in understanding how the approved UK system will actually operate.
That's particularly important for workplaces and vending locations, where the economics and practicalities may be quite different from those of a large supermarket.
What happens to all those returned containers?
This is perhaps the part of the system consumers will see least.
Behind every RVM and manual return point will sit an entirely new collection and processing network.
And that network is already being built.
Exchange for Change announced in September 2026 that five recycling and waste-management providers have been appointed to handle collection and processing. Around 400 collection vehicles are expected to support the scheme, while six new dedicated or shared-use processing facilities and lines are planned to be operational when DRS launches.
That gives some idea of the scale involved.
This isn't simply putting a few recycling machines outside supermarkets.
It's creating a national system capable of identifying, collecting, accounting for and recycling billions of individual drinks containers.
What about the cans and bottles themselves?
They'll change too.
Eligible containers will need appropriate DRS identification.
Exchange for Change says in-scope products will carry a DRS-compliant barcode registered with the scheme together with the UK Deposit Return Scheme logo. That enables the system to identify containers for which a deposit has genuinely been paid.
That last part matters.
Otherwise, someone could theoretically collect containers bought before the scheme started — on which no 20p deposit had ever been paid — and feed thousands of them into return machines.
The barcode and registration system is part of what prevents that.
There are also transition arrangements. Products manufactured and filled before 1 October 2027 can remain outside DRS and continue to be sold after launch, so there is likely to be a transitional period where old and new packaging coexist.
Will the deposit itself be subject to VAT?
Another important detail for businesses is that the deposit is being treated separately from the normal selling price of the drink.
Under the planned VAT framework, businesses throughout the supply chain won't simply charge VAT on the 20p deposit in the same way as the underlying product. Instead, the scheme administrator will account centrally for VAT associated with deposits that ultimately aren't redeemed.
For businesses selling large numbers of drinks, however, DRS will still mean changes to pricing, accounting, product data and potentially payment and vending systems.
That is something vending operators and their customers will need to prepare for well before launch day.
Why bother with all of this?
Because a drinks container is actually a useful raw material.
An aluminium can isn't rubbish.
Neither is a PET drinks bottle.
They're materials that can potentially become another can or bottle.
DRS is designed to keep more of that material in a closed recycling loop rather than losing it into general waste or the environment.
And attaching 20p to something has a remarkable ability to change the way we perceive it.
A discarded can will no longer just be litter.
It'll be 20p lying on the floor.
That could prove to be one of the simplest but most powerful aspects of the whole scheme.
1 October 2027 sounds a long way away. It isn't.
For the person buying a drink, very little needs to happen yet.
But for drinks manufacturers, retailers, wholesalers, vending operators and businesses with large numbers of employees, preparations are already underway.
Producer and retailer return-point registration opened in September 2026, packaging is being redesigned, IT and payment systems need adapting, collection infrastructure is being created and businesses are beginning to decide where their return points and Reverse Vending Machines will go.
The vending industry will have its own questions to answer.
How should the 20p deposit be displayed at the machine?
How will cashless payment systems handle it?
Where does an RVM make commercial sense?
Could a workplace RVM complement an existing vending estate?
And could collecting containers at the same location where many of them are originally purchased make the whole process considerably easier?
Those are some of the questions we're already investigating at H2O Vend.
Because from 1 October 2027, buying a drink from a vending machine won't quite be the end of the transaction anymore.
There'll still be 20p waiting inside the empty container.
