About
Why this site exists
The Deposit Return Scheme is well documented — but almost all of it is written for lawyers, producers and policy professionals. Very little of it answers the question a shopkeeper actually has.
Most retailers will meet this scheme in a PDF they were emailed, full of terms like “scheme administrator” and “Article List”, with no clear statement of what changes on their shop floor or in their till. That is a documentation problem, not a compliance problem — the obligations genuinely are not that complicated.
What this site is
A plain-English summary of the DRS as it applies to retailers, written from the published scheme documentation. What retailers must do, what a return point pays, who is exempt, and when each of those decisions needs to be made.
There are two tools here as well: a calculator that models a return point against the published handling fees using your own volumes and costs, and an exemption checker that tells you which exemption route your floor area and location put you on.
What this site is not
It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or speaking for Exchange for Change (UK Deposit Management Organisation (UK DMO)) or any government body. It is not legal, tax or financial advice. It is not the place to register, apply for an exemption, or claim a grant.
The scheme is also still being built. Fee structures, exemption criteria and equipment specifications have all moved within the past year. Everything here was current as of September 2026 — check the official source before you commit money or sign a contract.
How it is put together
Every figure on this site traces back to a published scheme source, and the source is linked wherever a number appears that you might act on. The fee rates, exemption thresholds, grant structure and timeline are all reproduced from official material rather than estimated.
Where this site offers an opinion — for example, on whether a manual return point is likely to pay for a particular store — it is labelled as guidance rather than fact, and the reasoning is shown so you can disagree with it.
Corrections
If something here is wrong or out of date, that is a bug worth reporting. Scheme details move, and a stale figure on an independent site is worse than no figure at all. We do not yet publish a contact address, so for now check the source link on the page and treat the official material as the version that counts.
Sources, and the limits of them
Everything here is compiled from published primary sources, principally:
- The legislation — the The Deposit Scheme for Drinks Containers (England and Northern Ireland) Regulations 2025 (UKSI 2025/67) for England and Northern Ireland, with separate schemes under the arrangements in Scotland and Wales.
- Government guidance — Deposit Return Scheme: drinks producer and retailer responsibilities from Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, republished under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
- The scheme administrator — Exchange for Change, for fees, exemptions, material specifications, the Article List and timelines.
- Trade bodies — operational guidance from bodies such as the Association of Convenience Stores, which goes beyond the administrator’s coverage.
Where we have interpreted rather than reproduced, we say so. Cost assumptions in the calculator are yours to set, not scheme figures. Where the position is genuinely contested, unsettled or still being confirmed by the administrator, the page says that instead of presenting a clean answer.
A disclaimer you should read
This site is an independent summary prepared for general information. It is not legal, tax, accounting or financial advice, and nothing here should be relied on as a compliance determination. We are not the scheme administrator and cannot authorise anything, register your business, approve an exemption, or confirm your obligations.
Scheme rules, fee rates, thresholds, timelines and exemption criteria are set by legislation and by the scheme administrator, and they change. Some operational detail remained unpublished even as this was written. Information is provided without warranty of accuracy or completeness, and we accept no liability for decisions made in reliance on it.
Always verify against the official source before committing money, signing a contract or changing your shop floor, and take your own professional advice for anything with financial or legal consequence. Where this site and the official source disagree, the official source wins — without exception.
Two obligations, easily confused. Charging the 20p deposit applies to every retailer selling in-scope drinks. Hosting a return point applies to most, but not all — and there are published routes to exemption. Start with the obligations page to get them straight.