Single-Use Disposable Beverage Cups Charge: Partial Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment

8. Benefits

Option 1: The benefits of not implementing the policy are that businesses will be free to choose whether to implement a charge of their own or not. This could provide businesses with the flexibility to implement a charge for sustainability reasons in response to changing market conditions or to gain a competitive edge when it identifies environmentally conscious consumers.

Businesses who do not choose to implement a charge may benefit their consumers by not having to pay a charge. Not implementing a charge does not however facilitate behaviour change in the customer or the business as noted within the EPECOM report^[60]. The Single-Use Cups Charge Advisory Group discussions highlighted that some businesses do not favour a voluntary charge. This does not create a level playing field and can impact a business’ competitiveness. While this is a saving to consumers, from an economic perspective, it is an avoided transfer payment from consumers to businesses and does not qualify as an economic benefit.

Option 2: The aim of the charge is to reduce the number of single-use disposable beverage cups used in Scotland by influencing consumer behaviour change away from single-use to reuse to help to tackle our throwaway culture and move towards more circular practices. The environmental benefits resulting from a reduction in single-use disposable cup use are laid out within the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA).

These benefits include: the reductions in the negative externalities (environmental impacts) associated with the manufacture, use, and inappropriate disposal of single-use disposable beverage cups; reduced litter clean-up costs are a direct saving for local authorities and other organisations who clean up single-use disposable beverage cup litter; individuals and communities in Scotland benefiting from less visual disamenity of litter (negative appearance in the environment) associated with single-use disposable beverage cups; and, societal benefits from less harmful effects of problematic materials and potentially chemicals in certain single-use disposable beverage cups leaking and persisting as litter in terrestrial and marine environments.

For businesses, if less customers are using single-use disposable beverage cups, they in turn need to purchase less which may mean a saving in purchase and disposal costs. A recently published report by Zero Waste Scotland on a reusable cup loan scheme in Stirling has evidence of savings, not just financial, made by participating businesses^[61].