Retailers are under pressure because of the increasing amount of plastic waste and low household recycling rates. They want to, in turn, identify new ways to increase consumer involvement. All retailers selling in-scope, single use drinks’ containers in England, Northern Ireland and Scotland will have to start collecting a deposit from October 1^st, 2027 and register with the Deposit Management Organisation. Stores with the capacity of 100 m² or larger will also be mandated to have a return point, which will result in an extensive integration in the run up to go-live (with exemptions for size and location).

UWorx worked closely with Flooid to create and implement a DRS solution for a major UK food and clothing retailer, which enables customers to pay a small deposit for qualifying containers and reclaim it when the container is returned — through Reverse Vending Machines (RVM), Hand-Held Terminals (HHT) and Point of Sale (POS). where customers deposit a small amount upon purchasing a container and get it back when they return it. This process is facilitated using Reverse Vending Machines (RVM), Hand-Held Terminals (HHT) and Point of Sale (POS).

Challenges

1. Fragmented Return Channels

The return of containers had to work in all cases where customers either used an automated RVM, manually counted the containers on an HHT, or just manually entered the value at the point of sale. This meant:

• Calculating accurate and instant refunds in all channels
• Assisting stores that have different levels of automation
• Preventing broken customer experiences due to return of the containers

2. Data Integrity & Fraud Prevention

To be effective, a deposit scheme needs to prevent vouchers from being duplicated, used again or falsified. This raised concerns about:

• Making sure each voucher issued can be validated and burned only once
• Preventing manual entry points from becoming a security vulnerability
• Making sure the configuration of the scheme (containers, values, store enablement) is uniform and readily accessible throughout the estate.

Solution: A Unified, Config-Driven DRS Platform

The DRS solution created by UWORX in partnership with F is based on a Container Voucher Controller (CVC) that is used to record, validate and burn every container voucher that is issued throughout the estate. Both RVM and HHT are connected to the CVC and vouchers are then redeemed at the POS creating a single chain traceable from container return to till redemption. On the HHT, the staff use a fully data-driven container list — names, sequence, deposit value and internal code — all read from the store-level XML configuration. DSR option will only be seen if the store is enabled. Real time adjustment of counts using plus and minus buttons to adjust the count; automatic calculation of the refund amount; override for exceptions via a keyed entry. Upon completion of a session, the HHT will return the container breakdown to the CVC which will register a voucher in response and return a code and print an RVM voucher (The CVC does not need to be aware of the channel it came from). However, if the CVC is not available, the HHT displays a specific “not available” state (retry or cancel). The cashier at the POS can enter the value of the voucher (or if the store has set up, may manually enter the value). The process of the scanned vouchers is real-time validate-then-burn: The value and state of the voucher is validated before the voucher is placed in the basket and the voucher is marked as used after it’s been redeemed. Error handling includes invalid, mismatched and already-burned vouchers. Manual entry is only processed when there is no scan-based redemption, is processed as a tender (tender mode) or as a standalone cash-out (sales mode), is trust based, and does not require the CVC validation. It’s all performed via a REST connector in the POS middleware mapped to the standard “ExternalTenderService” functions and it’s a synchronous integration, so the POS will always wait for the CVC response.

What Scotland’s DRS Experience Taught the Market

Scotland wanted to go first. The scheme had been delayed several times from its July 2022 target and in June 2023, the scheme was placed on hold and its administrator, Circularity Scotland was put into administration with over £86 million in liabilities. It has since been reset to October 2027 which is the same date as has been used for the rest of the UK and handed over to the UK-wide Deposit Management Organisation, whose directors come from Tesco, Co-op, Lidl GB, Heineken and Coca-Cola Europacific Partners. The client build was influenced by two lessons. First, the rules of the game will continue to change, and all of these are designed to work as data, not code, so when they move, there is no need to rebuild. Second, there will be a single UK administrator, voucher formats and reconciliation flows will converge to one specification which is nation-wide, while bespoke ones don’t. The solution designed by  UWorx and Flooid was specifically developed for these scenarios: config-driven, channel-agnostic and scheme-configuration-decoupled.

Key Features Delivered to the Client

• Multi-Channel Intake – Customers may return containers through RVM, HHT or POS all with the same voucher format.
• Real-Time Refund Calculation – Plus/Minus and keyed entry controls automatically calculate the amount of the refund on the HHT.
• Voucher Validation & Burn Cycle – All scanned vouchers are validated and burnt before being redeemed, preventing duplicate and fraudulent redemption.
• Config-Driven Container Management – No hard-coded store logic, no hard-coded values for deposit and enablement, all the values are managed via XML centrally.
• Offline Resilience – Offline retry/cancel handling on the HHT if it is temporarily unreachable.
• Privacy by Design – No customer personal data is collected in the scheme. Full
• Transaction Logging – DRS Voucher usage is recorded in the POS transaction events to the electronic journal and store logs for reporting and reconciling purposes.

Results

Consistent Customer Experience

• One voucher format across RVM and HHT, to be used at any till immediately
• Refund totals are calculated in real-time without any delays or manual reconciliation

Stronger Fraud Control

• Each voucher used and destroyed once at the CVC
• Manual entry points that are easily identified and separated from the automated, secure entry point.

Operational Flexibility

• XML configuration is applied to the client to enable/disable or change the scheme at the store level without having to modify the code.
• The status of POS and voucher is always synchronized in synchronous CVC integration.

Ready for Regulatory Change

• A scalable foundation ahead of the UK’s Deposit Return Scheme becoming a legal requirement on 1 October 2027, in a market with a high public demand, recent UK polling found 75% of respondents support a nationwide DRS, with 9 in 10 saying they would use it if available

UWorx and Flooid worked together to create a DRS platform that the client could rely on for high transaction volumes, fraud prevention and that would future proof against an ever-changing regulatory landscape. This means that the client has a leg up on the actions that other international markets, such as Germany and Sweden, have demonstrated in terms of changing recycling behaviour.