Forty years after the state added a five-cent deposit on some plastic bottles in order to encourage recycling, climate advocates say it’s “the right moment” to expand state’s bottle redemption law.
Proposals before the Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy would increase the bottle deposit from its current five cents to 10 cents and add more types of beverage containers to the program, putting a deposit on water bottles, vitamin drinks, nips and bottles for other drinks that weren’t contemplated when the initial law was adopted in 1982.
Efforts to update this bill have failed in the Legislature for years, and voters in 2014 shot down a ballot question to tack the five-cent bottle deposit onto drinks besides beer and soda.
Without success in expanding the deposit, advocates told lawmakers at two Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy hearings Wednesday (as House and Senate members continue to hold separate hearings amidst a feud between the committee’s co-chairs) that Massachusetts is falling behind.
The state has the lowest rate of people returning empty bottles and cans among the 10 states with bottle redemption laws, according to a report from the Container Recycling Institute that came out last year.
Only about 38% of plastic bottles are returned to grocery stores or redemption centers in Massachusetts, and only 40% of beverage containers are covered by a deposit, the report found. The nickel deposit returned to customers if they return the empty bottles under the 1982 law only applies to carbonated soft drinks, beer, malt beverages and sparkling water.
“In Oregon, they raised their redemption — their deposit value from five to 10 cents. Within three years, the redemption rate jumped by, I think it was 64% up to 86%. And today, they’re at almost 89%,” said Mike Noel, public affairs director at recycling company TOMRA. “The system has been neglected in Massachusetts for 40 years.”
In addition to doubling the deposit to 10 cents, the bills before the Legislature would expand the beverages subject to the deposit to include plastic water bottles, iced tea containers, nips and some other beverages.
Two versions of an expanded bottle bill have slightly different definitions of which beverages would be included, but both exempt dairy, medicine and formula bottles.
Steve Boksanski, lobbyist with the Massachusetts Beverage Association, said Wednesday that the group opposes expanding the bottle bill because the current law is “not performing well.”
“We’re at 38% redemption. Now, would you invest your money or your pension fund in an operation that’s at a 30% efficiency rate? I don’t think so,” he said. “So let’s think about other ways to attack this problem.”
Supporters of the bills who testified after Boksanski pushed back on this idea — saying that the 38% redemption rate would increase if the bills before the committee were passed into law.