Could a money-back scheme clean up the UK's plastic bottle plague?

Deposit return schemes for plastic bottles have been shown to cut litter and increase recycling in many countries - but not everyone agrees they're a good idea

More than 4m plastic bottles a week could be prevented from littering streets and marine environments in Britain if authorities adopted the kind of deposit-return schemes that operate in at least a dozen other countries, according to new evidence.

A report for the last parliament that was never published suggests there could be a dramatic reduction in the number of bottles littered if people paid a deposit that would be refunded if they returned used bottles.