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.

Wales, for example, has a much higher recycling rate than England. It operates a single recycling system across the country rather than separate systems in every local authority area.