The Chamber of Small and Medium Enterprises – GRTU yesterday hit out at the proposed Deposit and Return System, describing it as “bad for business, bad for consumers and bad for the environment”.

The GRTU said its members would be directed to ignore the scheme, and if it is introduced, the GRTU would (after 2008) boycott those “who would have crucified shopowners with a crazy deposits (scheme).” In a strong-worded statement, the GRTU said it was negotiating with the government for a system that would collect not only beverage containers but all forms of waste.

“The deposit system that is being proposed by the company MDRS, which has Farsons, Marsovin and General Soft Drinks behind it, does not work and it will never gain the support of the GRTU or the retailers. Therefore, retailers will not agree with it,” the chamber said.

In an interview in The Malta Business Weekly on Thursday, MDRS Ltd said the proposed system is the result of years of research based on local experience and on successful and proven systems that have been operational for a number of years in various European countries.

The system, which will be entrenched in a legal notice in the coming days, is an extension of the existing refillable glass bottle deposit systems, MDRS said. Apart from guaranteeing high levels of return in the first years, the company insists that the system will benefit the return recipients, the consumers and the environment.

However, MDRS’s arguments appear to have had little effect on the GRTU. The chamber said that the proposed system will be run using government funds, hence taxpayers’ money, and that it was a move to stifle competition. It said that the proposed scheme was an insult to shop owners, the consumers and towns and villages. The GRTU said its system was better and would collect more than just empty beverage containers.