The UK deposit return logo

Visual referenceSource-linked artwork

Marks are shown for identification, research and commentary. Certification and scheme artwork may be protected; consult the issuing body's current rules before reproducing it on products or packaging.

Three statutory schemes rather than a single United Kingdom rule

The expression “UK deposit return scheme” is commercially convenient but legally incomplete. Three instruments create three schemes. The Deposit Scheme for Drinks Containers (England and Northern Ireland) Regulations 2025 establish one scheme across those two jurisdictions. The Deposit and Return Scheme for Scotland Regulations 2020, substantially amended in 2025, establish a second. The Deposit Scheme for Drinks Containers (Wales) Regulations 2026 establish a third. The planned commencement date is aligned at 1 October 2027 across all four nations. Scope, administration and transitional rules are not identical. Alignment of date does not mean alignment of obligation.

Exchange for Change, the trading name of UK Deposit Management Organisation Limited, is the appointed operator for England, Northern Ireland and Scotland, and has issued the approved logo and the associated technical requirements for those three nations. Wales proceeded separately, includes glass within statutory scope, and, at the verification date, was developing its own deposit management organisation and operational arrangements. Artwork described as "UK-wide" therefore requires assessment against the Welsh scheme separately; the Exchange for Change asset does not by itself resolve the position in all four nations.

Containers and obligated parties

In England, Northern Ireland and Scotland the schemes cover single-use drinks containers made from PET plastic, aluminium or steel with a capacity from 150 millilitres to 3 litres. From launch, in-scope products must be registered and the deposit must move through the supply chain. Producers and importers register stock-keeping units and pay the producer fee and the deposit to the scheme operator; suppliers are prohibited from supplying non-compliant deposit items; and retailers collect the deposit and operate or participate in return arrangements, subject to the detailed exemptions set out in the regulations.

The labelling duty attaches to each individual deposit item, including each container within a multipack. Under the England and Northern Ireland Regulations, a scheme supplier must not supply a deposit item unless it carries the required item logo and a scheme return code. A scheme multipack must additionally carry the scheme packaging logo where the operator issues one under the regulations. Scotland employs the corresponding scheme logo and scheme return code architecture under its amended regulations and designation order.

A low-volume product exemption is available subject to defined registration conditions. Exchange for Change summarises the threshold as fewer than 5,000 units per stock-keeping unit per year, or 6,250 units during the first fifteen months of operation. Registered low-volume products are not simply unlabelled ordinary deposit items: the regulations specifically control the circumstances in which such products must not carry the scheme logo or return code. The exemption is accordingly a registration status rather than an inference available from volume alone, and the registration route determines whether artwork may omit the mark.

The mandatory Exchange for Change artwork

Exchange for Change published version 1.0 of its Logo Regulatory Requirements in February 2026. A single logo instance must appear on every in-scope packaging item from 1 October 2027. The primary portrait version is the default. The secondary landscape version may be used only where demonstrable space, format or layout constraints prevent clear and legible use of the primary version; it is not stated as an alternative available on grounds of visual preference.

The published guide specifies controlled minimum and maximum dimensions for the portrait and landscape options and for the available OPRL-replacement, square and standard Exchange for Change presentations. Each option requires 1 millimetre of clear space on either side, additional to the stated logo dimensions. The guide directs use of the current downloadable vector artwork and its embedded proportions rather than redrawing the icon or transcribing a measurement from a secondary summary. The point is of more than typographic significance, because the operator may replace or withdraw the logo through a formal process carrying an effective date and transitional arrangements.

The icon must be printed in a single colour. Black or white is preferred, at the producer's election, but another brand colour or a nutrition-label colour may be used where black or white is unsuitable. The guide supplies CMYK and Pantone references for green, amber and red options. That flexibility as to colour does not extend to modification of the form, the proportions, the required clear space or the approved orientation. The logo functions as the consumer-facing signal, whereas the separate scheme return code functions as the machine-readable identifier by which the container is recognised and the deposit refunded.

The return code, multipacks and stock transitions

The statutory return code carries operational weight equivalent to that of the visible logo. It must remain readable and intact so that a return point or reverse-vending machine can validate the container. The regulations empower the deposit management organisation to specify the code and to set the dates from which issued or replacement logos and codes must be used. The logo asset, the barcode or other approved identifier, the stock-keeping-unit registration and print-quality verification consequently form a single compliance object rather than four independent workstreams.

The England and Northern Ireland Regulations preserve transitional treatment where a logo is replaced, and where a scheme packaging logo for multipacks is issued after launch. The mark required in a given case may depend on when the container was produced or imported and on when the multipack packaging was first made available. These are date-and-stock provisions of defined scope; they do not operate as a general permission to sell unlabelled product after launch. Production, import and first-supply records are the evidence by which the applicable date is established, and the operator's formal effective-date communications determine when a replacement takes effect.

Participation in OPRL remains voluntary. The Exchange for Change guide states that producers may treat the deposit return scheme logo as the relevant recycling guidance in place of an OPRL label, while the deposit return scheme logo itself remains mandatory for in-scope items. Where a voluntary OPRL message is retained, the two messages address the same container, and a kerbside instruction on a deposit item stands in tension with the return instruction the statutory scheme requires.

Wales: aligned date, different material scope

Wales is scheduled to begin its scheme on 1 October 2027, but its regulations cover PET plastic bottles, aluminium and steel cans, and glass bottles from 150 millilitres to 3 litres. The immediate practical difference is tempered by a four-year transition for glass running to 30 September 2031. During that period in-scope glass drinks containers carry a zero-pence deposit and are exempt from the scheme's labelling requirements. The stated purpose of the transition is to allow time for industry adaptation and for the later development of reuse arrangements.

The Welsh scheme is to have its own deposit management organisation, logo and operational plan. Interoperability work may produce common features, but a registration, code or logo issued for England, Scotland and Northern Ireland is not on that account sufficient for supply into Wales. The variables determining the applicable artwork are accordingly the nation of supply, the container material, the volume, the low-volume registration status, the multipack configuration and the specification issued by the relevant deposit management organisation.

Enforcement and implementation sequence

The national regulations create offences and enforcement powers in respect of the supply of non-compliant scheme products and in respect of failures in registration, reporting, deposit handling and return-point duties. Enforcement is allocated among the relevant environmental regulators and government authorities, including the Environment Agency, the Northern Ireland Environment Agency, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and the Welsh regulatory bodies specified for the Welsh scheme. Depending on the breach and the jurisdiction, the available consequences range from compliance intervention and civil measures to criminal prosecution with financial penalties.

The implementation sequence begins with the identification of stock-keeping units within scope and their registration, rather than with artwork. The determinations required are the classification of every container by material, capacity and nation of supply; whether the low-volume route applies; which logo assets and return-code specification are current; the reservation of the required clear space; barcode readability and reverse-vending-machine recognition; multipack treatment; and the evidence establishing stock transition. Because the return code performs an operational function at the return point, visual approval of artwork does not establish that the code will be read.

Primary sources

• Deposit Scheme for Drinks Containers (England and Northern Ireland) Regulations 2025, SI 2025/67 — Open source
• Deposit and Return Scheme for Scotland Regulations 2020, as amended
• Deposit and Return Scheme for Scotland Amendment Regulations 2025, SSI 2025/188 — Open source
• Deposit Scheme for Drinks Containers (Wales) Regulations 2026, WSI 2026/103 — Open source
• Exchange for Change, Logo Regulatory Requirements, version 1.0 (February 2026)
• Exchange for Change, official scheme resources
• Welsh Government, announcement approving a deposit return scheme for Wales

Note on sources and verification

The statutory instrument numbers, the aligned launch date of 1 October 2027, the material and volume scope for England, Northern Ireland and Scotland, the Welsh inclusion of glass with a four-year transition to 30 September 2031, the publication of Logo Regulatory Requirements version 1.0 in February 2026, the 1 millimetre clear-space requirement on either side, the single-colour printing rule and the low-volume threshold of fewer than 5,000 units per stock-keeping unit per year were confirmed for this article. The figure of 6,250 units for the first fifteen months, the OPRL-replacement and square presentation options, and the CMYK and Pantone references for the green, amber and red variants derive from the operator's guide rather than from the regulations, and the guide is subject to revision by the operator through the formal process it describes.

The Scottish instrument is cited to the 2020 Regulations as amended; the number of the principal 2020 instrument is not given here because it was not confirmed against the register for this article, and the amending instrument SSI 2025/188 is cited in its place. Links to legislation.gov.uk are constructed from the instrument citations and could not be re-fetched on 19 August 2026 owing to network restrictions applying to this session; the citations rather than the links should be treated as the authority. The Welsh operational specification, including the logo to be issued for that scheme, had not been published at the verification date, and statements about Welsh artwork are accordingly limited to what the regulations and the Welsh Government announcement establish.

Monitoring points are the publication of the Welsh deposit management organisation's logo and technical specification; any revision to the Exchange for Change Logo Regulatory Requirements beyond version 1.0, together with its effective date and transitional arrangements; any change to the 1 October 2027 commencement date in any of the three schemes; and the issue of a scheme packaging logo for multipacks, which the England and Northern Ireland Regulations contemplate may occur after launch.

Last verified: 19 August 2026.