Video transcript: Schoolchildren urge Gove to back deposit return system

The pupils are Damers First School in Dorset want to see a litter-free future

Child 1:

We’re trying to introduce a deposit return scheme.

Every time someone would buy a plastic bottle or can, they would pay an extra 10 pence.

And they would have to put it in this machine and then they would get that 10 pence back.

So they invited Environment Secretary Michael Gove to hear their ideas

Child 2:

If you throw a plastic bottle on the floor, you’ve just lost your money.

Because then someone else could go pick up the bottle and then they would have it and they would have your money.

Child 3:

Well I asked him why can’t we have a deposit return system at the same time as Scotland?

And they showed him their ‘golden rules’ for how a deposit return system should work

Michael Gove:

So the first one is for a deposit return scheme to work, it has to take all sizes of bottles and cans, and all materials.

And then number five: paid for by the people who make the drinks.

That means the people who make Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Irn-Bru and everything else. They’re the people who have to make sure that we get our money back?

Absolutely. That makes perfect sense to me.

Help these brilliant young people achieve a litter-free future

Visit cpre.org.uk/depositreturn.

Watch the video on YouTube.