Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme Monitoring and Evaluation: Consumer Research

Tender description

5. DRS items are defined as drink packages that contain at least 50 millilitres and no more than 3 litres of liquid, come in a single-use container made of PET plastic, steel and aluminium, or glass, and are sealed in an airtight and watertight state at the point of sale and regardless of whether it is sold alone or as a unit in a multipack. Single-use containers are defined as packaging for a drink that is not conceived, designed or placed on the market to accomplish, within its life span, multiple refills by a consumer or multiple trips or rotations by being returned to a producer to be refilled by that producer for the same purpose for which it was conceived. Non-DRS items are defined as articles first made available to be marketed, offered for sale or sold by the producer on or after 16 August 2023 but that do not meet the criteria described above (e.g. high density poly ethylene (HDPE) plastic containers, the kind used for milk and some other drinks, or lined cardboard containers like Tetrapak). 6. Defining ‘consumer’ will also be important as in most policy areas this would be deemed to be an adult who purchases a drink (consumption in economic terms). For DRS policy, consumer is also defined as someone who drinks that drink (consumption in behavioural terms). Because it is the behavioural consumer who is likely to make decisions on how to dispose of the packaging, we suggest that consumer should be defined in behavioural terms. This presents the question: if the market mechanism acts on the purchaser but the behaviour is expected of the drinker, are there sufficiently strong mechanisms acting between the purchaser and the drinker to ensure the packaging is returned? Young people (e.g. people of school age) are likely to be consumers of out-of-home packaged drinks bought with their carers’ money. Consideration should therefore be given to also including people below 18 years of age in the definition of consumer for the purpose of consumer surveys and other research with consumers. 7. DRS is seen as a way of achieving a desired step change in the quantities of waste collected for recycling, with the best performing schemes in the world achieving a capture rate of up to 95%. Zero Waste Scotland (ZWS) previously commissioned a survey of adults to form the basis of a segmentation exercise. The survey asked some very relevant questions that could be used in a baseline questionnaire. Aims 11. The primary aim of this work is to design and deliver quantitative and qualitative research to study the impact of DRS on consumers of packaged drinks in Scotland by monitoring changes over time (before and after DRS launch) in: - packaged drinks purchasing/consumption behaviours - recycling behaviours (including recycling at home, taking items used at home to a recycling point, recycling items when away from home) - use of council recycling services for paper, cardboard, plastic bottles, plastic pots, tubs and trays, plastic film, glass, metals tins and cans, aerosols, foil - barriers to recycling at home and away from home - consumer understanding of DRS - perceived availability of DRS return points to consumers - perceived accessibility of DRS return points to consumers - perceived acceptability of DRS return points to consumers (i.e. perceptions of convenience, user-friendliness, operational viability); - usage of return points by consumers - barriers to the use of DRS 12. The research should also aim to assess whether there are any implications of DRS for equity. Exploring differential impacts across socio-demographic and equalities groups as well as across island, mainland, rural, urban, more deprived and less deprived geographies is an important aim of this project. 13. The research should focus on packaged drinks containers purchased within Scotland; materials of interest, under the DRS regulations, should be considered alongside non-DRS items to account for any behavioural spillover effects. 14. It is our intention that a baseline survey will be conducted before DRS launch (and preferably before DRS-related publicity starts in early 2023), and that similar exercises will be undertaken 6 months post-launch (likely to be 2024) and again at 18 months post-launch (likely in 2025). The exact dates and timetable of this will need to be agreed with the project manager. The two follow up surveys will include specific focus/questions on consumers’ use of DRS which are not applicable before the scheme launches. Qualitative research should add value to survey data – e.g. it can help get a deeper understanding of quantitative results and/or provide an avenue for hard-to-reach, underrepresented groups to participate in the research. Reports, raw quantitative data and a report on methodology will need to be delivered as part of this multi-year procurement which will feed into a longer-term and broader evaluation of the DRS scheme that will consider other elements beyond consumer behaviours. 15. A representative sample of the population in Scotland is a key requirement for the surveys, but tenderers are asked to provide details and rationale if they propose to oversample any groups (see ‘Methods’ for more details). The data should be weighted to reflect known patterns of non-response bias and for other sub-group profiles of the population. Qualitative research can be used to account for experiences of groups that may be under-represented in surveys. 16. The below table represents a high-level theory of change for increasing the quantity of waste collected and sent for recycling.