A scheme is being proposed to encourage recycling and cut plastic waste, which would see customers in England pay more for drinks in the shops.

Customers will then be able to claim the money back if they return their drinks containers to be recycled.

The scheme will apply to all single-use drink containers whether they are plastic, glass or metal.

Scotland has already announced plans for a deposit return scheme, while the Welsh Assembly is also looking into the possibility.

How might it work?

How exactly this will work is going to be consulted on, but we can look to other countries with deposit return schemes for clues.

There are 40 countries and 21 US states with some kind of deposit return scheme currently in operation.

A small extra cost (between 8p and 22p) is added to the price of the drink, which is then refunded to the customer when they take it back to be recycled.

In some areas, bottles or cans are taken back to the shop they were bought from, while in others a network of automated collection points known as "reverse vending machines" have been installed.

If a customer doesn't return a bottle to collect the deposit, that money can be given to the producers, retailers, donated to charity or funnelled back into running the scheme.

Will it increase recycling?

Research by the parliamentary Environmental Audit Committee found countries with deposit return schemes tended to recycle between 80% and 95% of their plastic bottles.

In Norway, 95% of all plastic bottles are now recycled, compared with England at the moment where the rate is 57%. About half of all the plastic bottles used in a year in England are water bottles.

But research commissioned by Defra also identified some areas such as South Australia and California that have deposit schemes and similar rates of recycling as the UK.

Comparisons are difficult though - overall rates of recycling also depend on how effective systems such as the kerbside collection of household waste are.