Bottle Law Expansion
A quick note on the notion of expanding the current bottle deposit law: If anything, we should be repealing the current law and putting all the bottles back into the curbside recycling stream to keep it viable. The main motivation behind expansion of the current law is the state budget crisis. The governor and several legislators want to increase the revenue produced by the unclaimed deposits. In other words, they are counting on people NOT returning bottles at a pretty high rate. Anyone really committed to the environment and "green" initiatives should be opposed to the bottle deposit law, as it actually is counterproductive to true recycling efforts.
Comments
Bottle Bill
Wouldn't a repeal of the bottle deposit law put an end to the typical trash pickers who go through the hundreds of city and town barrels looking for their nickels? The bottles would then stay in those 'Unrecyclable" type recepticles and therefore NOT be recycled. I'd wager that's a pretty hefty percentage of bottles that go unrecycled - and it would be everyday. I personally also bring my bottles home to be recycled since I don't return them to the store - but what about the average Joe? Would they now return to the practice of chucking them out the window on the highway? Either way it's going to be interesting to see how it all evolves. Or devolves.
It's about litter and making green decisions about packaging
As I recall, the bottle bill was enacted in 1983 in response to the plague of trash - mostly soda and beer bottles and cans - littering our highways and roadsides. And you know what, it worked. The only problem was that lawmakers thought they were covering most of their bases by including "carbonated" beverages in the bill. They didn't foresee the explosion of bottled water and non-carbonated sports and energy drinks whose plastic bottles once again litter our roads and highways. And these things do not decompose! I can tell you that on my street, Blue Hill Drive, we are constantly picking up trash that's been thrown from cars, most of it plastics.
But there is a larger issue that this bill addresses, that of the decisions we make as consumers that have long-term environmental consequences. The manufacture and transport of plastic bottles filled with water that is no better, and often more contaminated, than the water coming from our taps, wastes huge amounts of energy and pumps thousands of tons of harmful chemicals into our environment.
I realize that the bill exacts toll on retailers like Roche Bros. It imposes an obligation to collect, account for, and remit deposits as well as collect and store dirty empties and make refund payments to bottle collectors. But maybe that's a good thing environmentally, because it actually addresses this problem at three levels:
Just because the budget crisis is the motivation for the law doesn't make it a bad thing to do. In fact, it's in tough times like these that we look for creative solutions to our problems. Who cares if the state wants to keep some of our deposits, they can only do it if and when we as individual citizens fail to return out bottles. That's our decision, not the state's.
Influencing Behavior and Unintended Consequences
I personally don't like the bottle bill because I'm one of those people who always recycles my empties, whether there's a deposit or not. I don't like being taxed or otherwise encouraged to deal with dirty, sticky empties and the machines that eat them because others in our society are lazy or don't care about the Earth.
Despite the bottle bill, our streets and highways are strewn with trash. Maybe it would be worse without the bottle bill, but expanding the bill or modestly increasing its cost will not make our highways clean. If the problem is trash on the highways, then hire people to clean them more often and/or enforce the littering laws.
I don't claim to have all the answers. What would a 50 cent deposit do to behavior? Would people return all empties and change behavior? Buy different products, upending industries? Or just take more money out of people's pockets, reducing consumption in other necessities, eliminating jobs in other industries? Would increased redemption percentages at the existing rates cause Beacon Hill to lose revenue and thus cut other programs? I know I prefer fewer Rube Goldberg like policies intended to cause some effect at the other end without really knowing how the gears will turn and who the ultimate winners and losers are.
My Opinion
ANYTHING WHICH RESEMBLES A CAN OR A BOTTLE SHOULD BE INCLUDED IN THE MASSACHUSETTS BOTTLE BILL!
David
That's exactly what I was
That's exactly what I was thinking
State records show that over
State records show that over 75% of all deposit containers are redeemed. This is double the estimated number of non-deposit containers recycled. Sure we all have recycling at home. Do we always use it? No. Do we consume beverages away from the home where recycling is not accessible? Yes, the recycling rates prove this. Aside from a cost to beverage distributors (Coke and Pepsi), these new containers can be collected through the existing machines at the stores with little to no effort. No brainer!
redemption is a pain
The fact that the majority of deposit containers are redeemed illustrates the fact that if you make a piece of potential trash worth 5 cents, some desparate person will show up at 4am outside my house to rumage through my recycle bins in search of bottles. So perhaps it does work to create a volunteer workforce of bottle collectors. But it bothers me that people seem to think it's so easy to redeem the bottles yourself.
Right now, I have proably 100 or so containers in my basement. To redeem them and claim $5, I will need to make separate trips to grocery stores and assorted liquor stores depending on where the container originated. I blogged once about how I tried to visit a state redemption center in Walpole only to learn that it had limited hours and did not even redeem the full amount. Another neighbor commented about his experience--shared by me too--of having half the bottles rejected by the machines. Why don't we just make it so all bottles can be redeemed at all stores?
Now this all seems so trivial, I know, and what I eventually do is simply put the containers out in the recycle bins so they can be collected by the guys at 4am. Or I could save them up and donate them to the high school bottle and can drive, but I usually forget and recycle them about a week before the bottle and can drive is announced. I should just accept that I'm paying an environmental container tax...for those who object to that, have fun stuffing bottles in the machines.