If you were to design a Deposit Return System (DRS) for the Global South, how would you do it?

This is a conversation I have had with many people in Europe, and the first instinct is always to look at the best performing systems in the Old Continent and see how to extrapolate this approach to other countries. This methodology has been trialled many times, and my experience of decades of work in both the Global North and the Global South shows me that it has underdelivered at best or, at worst, strepitously failed.

In our project with the Global DRS Platform, we were very aware of this fact when engaging in the preparation of the workshop that we held on 1-4 February 2026 in Manila (Philippines). This workshop aimed to design a DRS system that would work for the country, with our partners Mother Earth Foundation, the Philippines Reuse Consortium, the Philippines Waste Workers Alliance, and the country’s Zero Waste Cities Network.

There are over 40 countries with DRS worldwide, and no two DRS are the same. However, there are almost no modern DRS systems in the Global South. There are many old DRS systems that some brands have been using for refillable packaging, but nothing close to a nationwide, mandatory DRS system.

This is why our approach was to:

Over the workshop days, we could see how the group of 30+ participants evolved from almost not knowing what DRS is about to not only mastering the tool, but also taking the initiative to design a system that works for their constituencies (waste workers, small retail, reuse businesses, local authorities, and civil society) while delivering the best environmental and economic outcome.

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