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The expansion to the existing Massachusetts bottle bill (House Bill 3515) is dead. Again…

The bill was elegant and smart, and it would have brought a little money with it.

It would have given a makeover to the state’s bottle redemption law, which puts a refundable nickel deposit on some drink containers to encourage consumers to return them rather than throw them in the trash.

The 1982 law was written before the explosion of the snake-oil industry more commonly known as the bottled water business. And so it applies only to carbonated drinks — not water, sports drinks, or teas. Those drinks account for at least 1 billion of the more than 3 billion drink containers sold in Massachusetts each year. Only a third of those excluded containers, at best, are recycled (compared with 80 percent of bottles that carry deposits).

The rest — enough plastic bottles to fill Fenway Park, according to a Sierra Club estimate — are tossed into landfills each year.

The bottle bill update would have kept most of that plastic out of landfills and sent it to redemption centers. Those centers get 2.25 cents from beverage distributors for every bottle they handle, and the bill would have raised those handling fees by a penny — the first increase for struggling recycling centers since 1990.

The state said the new law would save cities and towns up to $7 million a year in trash costs and add $20 million to the $38 million the state already gets each year from unclaimed deposits.

Not surprisingly, the beverage industry went to work on legislators to snuff out the whole thing. After all, the new law would cost distributors money, making them responsible for even more bottles, when what they really want is to be responsible for none of them.

The companies that seem to have had no problem jacking up prices over the decades when it meant profits for them suddenly found grave concern for the well-being of their customers: There was no avoiding passing their extra costs along to Joe Six-pack, they said, and that wouldn’t be fair to him.

They were über-tree huggers, too, they said, and they worried that encouraging more bottle redemptions would undermine curbside recycling. As if we couldn’t — or shouldn’t — do both.

Despite their efforts, the bottle bill update got further than it has in the 16 years advocates have been trying to get it passed. A compromise made it out of a Senate committee for the first time in mid-July.

“I’ve worked on a lot of bills, and I really thought they were going to do it this time,’’ said Phil Sego, spokesman for the Massachusetts Sierra Club.

The bottle bill was done in by the dreaded T-word. Critics called the deposits a tax. And legislative leaders would rather eat their own heads than pass anything that even remotely resembles that evil specter.

Never mind that the five-cent deposit is fully refundable. Never mind that the bill would save cities and towns cleanup costs and fund water supply improvements. Never mind that the bill would offset the much bigger and more permanent cost of clogging landfills with plastic forever.

If intransigent legislators understood those nuances, they had no appetite for communicating them to voters in an election year, or no faith that their constituents would get it.

RIP (for now…)

Additional Information on Existing MA Bottle Bill: http://www.mass.gov/dep/recycle/reduce/bbillcon.htm

Original story written by Yvonne Abraham, a Globe columnist–it may be found here at The Boston Globe.

As introduced, Oklahoma’s bottle bill is sparse on details. This is deliberate, and many changes are expected throughout the legislative session.

Oklahoma Bottle Bill 2010

The bill specifies that the program shall be administered by the Department of Environmental Quality and the accounting functions shall be performed by the Oklahoma Tax Commission. These departments may create additional rules to implement the act.

Oklahoma’s bill declares an emergency relating to public peace, health and safety, and thus makes the bill effective immediately after its passage.

Opposition to an Oklahoma bottle bill is strong; so supporters of container deposits are encouraged to get involved and contact their legislators, focusing on the following key issues:

1) Jobs, jobs, jobs!

• This bill is a job saver and creator. Specifically, it saves jobs like those of ours in the glass industry and others using recycled content to reduce energy consumption and costs.
• The bill allows for redemption centers. This will create a new industry for entrepreneurs to open businesses and hire people to operate and maintain them.
• Transportation jobs for trucking recycled materials.

2) No mandates and not a tax!

• Our bill does not mandate any store owner to have reverse vending machines on their property. Although, grocers should understand if there is a redemption center between two local grocery stores, he will not be able to guarantee the customer will enter his store with the redemption receipt to buy more products.
• This is a return on investment. The only way a consumer would lose money is if he/she chose not to redeem their bottles and cans. For those who don’t return their empty beverage containers, we say “thank you” for helping build the unredeemed deposit fund.

3) A complement to curbside recycling

• Bottle bills and curbside recycling are not mutually exclusive; they work best when they are combined.
• Curbside recycling only targets residential.
• Deposit laws target mostly beverage containers consumed away from home.
• Curbside recycling is not free; municipalities must budget for the extra pick-up, handling and space. Taxpayers foot the bill.
• Deposit laws put the cost on the producers, not the consumer.
• Co-mingled material from curbside and single-stream recycling is much more difficult to be reused by manufacturers. The material has to be sorted and has much higher levels of contamination. You can’t unscramble an egg!
• Bottle bill states produce “pristine” recycled material for optimal reuse.
• Statistics show (Container Recycling Institute), states having bottle bills have much higher overall recycling rates than other states. It becomes part of the culture.
• Lessens trash going to landfills.

4) Significant environmental benefits

• Reduction in energy use.
• Reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
• Reduction of virgin material extraction.
• Litter reduction along roadsides, parks, lakes, rivers, farmer’s fields and city areas.

5) Self sustaining

• The unredeemed deposit fund allows for a self-sustaining project. No taxes or public funds! This could be a huge amount of money, especially when the project first gets going, since many people won’t redeem their containers. It is up to the state to decide how they want to use it, but there could be many benefits, especially at a time when there are so many budgetary short-falls.
• We like the idea of charities and/or churches getting involved to be redemption centers. This could raise a significant amount of money for their causes and put people to work.

For more information: http://www.bottlebill.org/legislation/campaigns/oklahomac.htm

The California Grocers Association is expressing support for a proposed law in the state legislature that would introduce a state-wide standard for disposable shopping bags.

The California State Assembly passed legislation that would, if adopted by the Senate and signed by the Governor, begin a phase-out of all single-use plastic grocery bags at supermarkets, pharmacies, convenience and liquor stores in the state.

AB 1998 passed the assembly with 41 votes on 1 June 2010 and now goes to the State Senate. Governor Schwarzenegger’s office has signaled he is prepared to sign the bill.

The bill is aimed at reducing the more than 19 billion single use grocery bags generated in California annually. Consumers will be encouraged to bring their own reusable bags. Paper bags with high levels (40% postconsumer) recycled content would also be available for their actual cost, which currently ranges between 5¢ – 8¢ a bag.

Californians Against Waste (CAW) joined Assemblymember Julia Brownley and a coalition of environmental groups, grocery stores, and labor groups to announce a growing wave of support for legislation to ban plastic bags in California.

“These so-called ‘free bags’ are an environmental and economic nightmare,” said CAW Executive Director Mark Murray. “Californians use and discard more than 2 million plastic bags every minute of every day and many of those end up as pollution in our parks, streams and ocean.”

• Industry and Environmentalists agree that roughly 19 billion plastic bags are distributed in California annually.
• In 2006, CAW joined with retailers and the plastics industry in enacting AB 2994 (Levine), legislation aimed at increasing the recycling of plastic bags. However, despite that effort, less than 5% are currently recycled.
• Even when bags are initially properly disposed, they often blow out of trash cans, garbage trucks, and landfills and become litter.
• Most California retailers currently subsidize the cost of plastic and paper bags. This cost is estimated at more than $400 million annually, and is undoubtedly passed on to consumers in the form of higher grocery costs.
• In January, Washington, DC enacted a 5¢ ‘fee’ on grocery bags. That policy has been credited with reducing single-use bags by 65%.
• 60–80% of marine debris pollution overall, and 90% of the floating marine debris, is plastic litter.
• More then 1 million seabirds, 100,000 marine mammals, and countless fish die annually through ingestion of or entanglement in marine debris which includes plastic bags.
• AB 1998 is supported by Retailers, Environmental Groups, Local Governments, Labor, and the nation’s largest paper bag manufacturer (Duro Bags).

Check out the Californians Against Waste website for more information.

Delaware replaces venerable bottle deposits with recycling fee

Delaware has instituted a controversial 4-cent non-refundable recycling fee to replace its 28-year-old bottle bill that required a 5-cent deposit on plastic and glass soft drink and beer bottles.

What a tragedy!

“We are extremely disappointed they chose to repeal their law, rather than enforce it,” said Susan Collins, executive director of the Container Recycling Institute, based in Culver City, Calif. “This is really anathema to our approach. We support extended producer responsibility where producers and consumers pay for the life cycle costs of the packaging.”

The other ten states in the U.S. with bottle deposit bills have bottle recycling rates that exceed 70 percent. But Delaware officials testified during their legislative battle that the state’s bottle recycling rate was only 12 percent because many retailers refused to accept returned bottles.

The bill, which the Legislature approved May 11, establishes a 4-cent per container recycling fee, starting December 1. It is designed to provide start-up funds to help waste-haulers start single-stream curbside recycling.

The bill mandates that all municipal and private waste haulers provide such curbside recycling pickup for single-family homes starting September 15, 2011, for multi-family residences starting January 1, 2013, and for commercial sites by 2014.

The fee is scheduled for sunset December 1, 2014 or after $22 million is raised.

Delaware Gov. Jack Markell supports the bill and is expected to sign it into law. However, several Republican legislators have said they would challenge the law in court, as the tax amounts to a new fee. According to state law, bills that mandate new fees need a 75 percent majority to pass, which the bill did not receive.

Collins said the repeal of the Delaware bottle bill, while certainly unwelcome, won’t have much effect on the national bottle recycling rate.

Delaware has less than 900,000 people and its now-repealed bottle bill only covered 19 percent of beverages sold in Delaware, Collins said. “The impact to the national recycling rate is likely to be less than one-tenth of 1 percent.”

Conversely, the addition of water bottles to the Connecticut and New York bottle bills last year could increase the amount of beverage containers recycled nationwide by 2 percentage points if the bottles added to those deposit laws are recycled at the same recycling rate as in other bottle bill states, she said.

“This is a pretty unusual approach,” Collins said of the Delaware bill. “This tax places a burden on consumers only and has them paying for curbside, apartment and even commercial recycling. Consumers will be subsidizing the producers and that is unfair.”

The Delaware law goes against recent trends, as a number of states (Texas, Tennessee, Oklahoma) are now looking at expanding bottles or at extended producer responsibility laws to reduce waste and advance recycling.

Original Story on Plastics News

Reasons to Support The Bottle Bill

Keeping current with consumer habits
As America becomes a increasingly “on the go” society, a bottle bill will help to capture the containers of beverages not consumed at home. We are now enjoying beverages in the park, at the beach, in our cars and at the office. With over 20 years of experience bottle laws have help to recycle an average of 75% of all beverage containers.

Promotes Recycling and Reduces Waste
Bottle bills generally result in higher materials recovery rates–which benefit the environment by reducing litter and supports the recycling industry that depends on a constant stream of recyclable materials. Increased recovery rates leads to reduction of our reliance on oil and reduces the depletion of natural resources through the re-manufacturing of recycled material.

Provides Financial Incentives for Recycling
Deposits on beverage containers were used for many decades by the beverage industry to ensure the return of their refillable bottles. Deposits work because they provide a financial incentive to recycle and a disincentive to litter.

Bottle bills are unique from litter taxes or publicly funded recycling programs in that the money that the buyer pays is returned to them when they recycle the container. Deposits place the cost of managing post-consumer beverage containers where it really belongs–on those who manufacturing, sell and buy them. Whether they are landfilled, littered or recycled, there is a cost to managing ‘used’ beverage containers which has been passed onto the counties and municipalities and represent a cost to government and taxpayers. The deposit system shifts those cost to producers and consumers who choose not to redeem their deposits.

Produces High-Quality Recyclable Materials
Not all recycled materials get made into a new product. Breakage and contamination of materials in collection results in them being “downcycled” into material that can not be recycled. Containers collected through a bottle bill generally suffer less breakage and contamination–that means more beverage containers can be recycled into new products.

A study of glass recycling showed that only 40% of glass from single-stream systems is recycled into containers and fiberglass, 40% winds up in landfills and 20% are process into glass fines and used in low-end applications. In bottle bill systems, color-sorted material results in 98% being recycled and only 2% marketed in to glass fines.

Generally plastic material from single-stream MRFs yield about 68%-70%. Bales of PET from deposit return systems generally have a yield rate of about 85%.

A deposit system along with a curbside program will result in savings to local governments by reducing collection and processing fees.

Creates Jobs
A bottle bill law creates new jobs in the retail, processing, and recycling industry. Creation of jobs have been shown in every bottle bill state. Michigan gained 4,684 jobs, New York 3,800 jobs, Massachusetts 1,800 and Vermont gained 350 jobs.

Many of these facts and figures were pulled from the Container Recycling Institute site.

There are currently eleven bottle bill states in the U.S., the first originating in 1971. Another ten states have deposit/refund legislation pending, including Texas.

Texas Bottle Bill Legislation Mission Statement

The mission of the Texas Bottle Bill is to establish a deposit/refund program to decrease the volume of aluminum, glass & plastic beverage containers in our lakes & rivers; bays & bayous; on our roadways and public lands. The deposit/refund system will combine financial incentives & convenient redemption centers; this along with curbside collection will ensure the maximum number of beverage containers for recycling. This Texas Bottle Bill will establish a funding base to create jobs locally and throughout the state in the recycling industry and bring processors and manufactures into our state. The Texas Bottle Bill will reduce Texans carbon footprint by increasing the supply of high quality materials for recycling and help replace the practice of using virgin material to produce new products.

Litter travels from all corners of Texas into our storm drains and waterways until it reaches the Gulf of Mexico. The mission of the Texas Bottle Bill is to stop the unnecessary and improper disposal of valuable resources and to help create jobs for our communities here in Texas.

To help pass the Texas Bottle Bill in 2011, contact your State Representative and State Senator today (check here for details). Ask them to Support the Texas Bottle Bill in 2011.

Texas Bottle Bill for 2011

The proposed Texas Bottle Bill for 2011 will initiate a 10¢ refundable deposit on all aluminum, glass and plastic beverage containers sold in the State of Texas.

Buffalo Bayou, Houston Texas

With the passage of this bill Texas can:

1. Create new jobs in the recycling and processing industries in Texas.
2. Reduce landfill space by taking recyclables out of the waste stream.
3. Reduce greenhouse gases.
4. Bring new manufacturing jobs to Texas.
5. Reduce reliance on oil and other natural resources.
6. Increase our overall recycling rate (bottle bill state average is 75%).
7. Clean our highways, streets and waterways of litter.

Proposed Bill

Beverages Covered
Beer, malt, carbonated soft drinks, mineral water, wine, coffee, tea, juices and non-carbonated waters. Dairy products excluded.

Containers Covered
All sealed containers made of glass, plastic or aluminum containing a beverage of 4 liters or less.

Amount of Deposit
10¢ on 24 oz or less, 15¢ on greater than 24 oz

Handling Fee
A handling fee to be paid to retailers, redemption centers, recycling centers and registered curbside operations

Reclamation System
Retail stores, redemption centers, recycling centers and registered curbside operations

Beverage Container Fund
Administered by a non-profit co-op

Program goal
75% overall recycling rate for Texas

New York City is looking to dramatically overhaul its recycling program, which would mean more materials accepted at the curb, as many as 1,000 recycling bins placed across New York’s five boroughs and an increased emphasis on collecting household hazardous waste (HHW).

The New York Times reports that it would be the first major change to the city’s recycling legislation since 1989 and would coincide with the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. Among the highlights:

NYC Considers Huge Recycling Legislation

• The New York Department of Sanitation would begin collecting all rigid plastic containers, as opposed to the current program that accepts just plastic bottles and jugs. This would cover products such as yogurt tubs and butter containers, and the city anticipates it would result in 8,000 tons of plastic diverted from landfills each year.

• Within the next 10 years, 700 new recycling bins would be installed to allow easy access for public recycling. There are currently about 300 of these bins in operation.

• Each borough would host at least one annual HHW collection event, with the long-term goal to create permanent sites. Each borough already operates a Self-Help Special Waste Drop-Off Site that accepts a limited number of common hazardous products such as batteries, fluorescent bulbs and paint.

• New York would establish a manufacturer and/or retailer take-back program for consumers to safely dispose of unused paint, as it’s estimated that this accounts for 50 percent of NYC’s HHW.

• The Department of Sanitation would set up separate bins to collect clothing and textiles.

Another important distinction created by the new law would be to differentiate between residential and commercial customers when it comes to fines for not participating. Buildings with one to eight units would pay a $25 fine for the first two violations and it would jump to $100 for the third offense, whereas buildings with more than nine units would start at $100 and jump to $400 on the third strike. The City would offer recycling workshops and trainings as an alternative to paying fines.

This isn’t the first time that New York City has developed a separate recycling initiative than the rest of the state. In 2008, it began a retailer plastic bag take-back program that was later adopted by the entire state, and New York City currently has a landfill ban on rechargeable batteries that is not in effect at a state level.

The expansion of New York City’s recycling legislation will go before the Solid Waste Management Committee and will then need approval from Mayor Michael Bloomberg in order to move forward.

If passed, many of the changes will not take effect for several years, such as the plastic expansion that is contingent upon a new recycling facility in Brooklyn, which will not open until 2012.

Thanks Trey Granger and Earth911 for the article!

Tennessee’s (TN) proposed beverage-container deposit–the easiest, most effective Green Jobs Initiative we’ll see this year–comes before a legislative subcommittee on Tuesday, March 23, 2010. The committee members need to hear from you, the supporters. Unfortunately, they are hearing a lot of misinformation from special-interest opponents.

Most special interest groups apparently don’t understand how the new bill works; if the did they would not oppose it. Retailers, for example, would not have to use their floor space or pay employees to accept and pay back container deposits. Redemption centers that profit off their recycling sales would handle that. And, experience in other states shows, these centers would start-up (just as recycle centers would become profitable redemption centers) if the bill passes because two of the most commonly used containers — aluminum and plastic — are easily sold and highly profitable. The profits in other bottle-bill states easily offset the lagging market for glass.

Contact your Representative now:

Rep. Joe Carr–rep.joe.carr@capitol.tn.gov (Rutherford Co)
Rep.Ty Cobb–rep.ty.cobb@capitol.tn.gov (Maury Co)
Rep. Ryan Haynes–rep.ryan.haynes@capitol.tn.gov (Knox Co)
Rep. John Litz –john.litz@capitol.tn.gov (Hamblen Co)
Rep. Gerald McCormick–rep.gerald.mccormick@capitol.tn.gov (Hamilton Co)

Tell these folks why you support a 5-cent deposit on beverage containers. Be sure to include your hometown, especially if you live in one of their counties.

We covered the initial story back in October when SB 402 was vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger. Here’s hoping for a revival!

The Bottle Bill Fix, AB 7, just passed the Assembly and now heads to the Governor’s Desk.  AB 7 will immediately restore roughly $15 million per month in core recycling funding under California’s successful Bottle Bill. Funding was cut last July forcing the closure of hundreds of centers and the loss of several hundred ‘green jobs’.  If signed into law by Governor Schwarzenegger, AB 7 will immediately restore funding and prevent millions in further cuts to recyclers, local governments, conservation corps and other core components of California’s successful Bottle Bill.

Details

California’s successful Beverage Container Recycling Program is under threat due to significant cuts to core recycling programs, such as payments for supermarket-based recycling, payments for curbside recycling and payments to conservation corps recycling. Cuts are due in large part to outstanding loan repayments to General Fund.  Without AB 7, California recyclers and local governments will continue to face millions in cuts, including:

• $15 million for curbside recycling
• $8.25 million for conservation corps recycling
• $20 million for recycling grants
• $10.5 million to local governments
• $10 million for quality incentive payments for glass
• $10 million for market development for plastic containers
• $44 million in handling fees for supermarket recycling centers

TAKE ACTION: Tell Governor Schwarzenegger to Sign AB 7 into Law!

The now 9-month campaign to restore funds cut from the California Bottle Bill has been a top priority and consumed a tremendous amount of time and resources. Thanks for your support!

UPDATE

Governor Schwarzenegger signs AB 7 into Law. The letter to the Members of the California State Assembly is here.

A Virginia legislative panel has rejected a proposal to levy a tax on consumers who accept paper bags or plastic bags from retailers.

A House Finance subcommittee tabled HB1115, a bill that would have required shoppers to pay a five-cent tax for each carryout bag received from retail establishments, including grocers, pharmacies and department stores.

The move follows on the heels of a decision by state legislators to set aside a proposal to ban plastic retail bags.

“Most public officials have determined that a new tax is not the most effective approach to combat litter – and that recycling works,” says Shari Jackson of the American Chemistry Council’s Progressive Bag Affiliates, which represents domestic plastic bag manufacturers.

The ideal solution would be for consumers to utilize reusable bags as blogged about here: Which is Better… Paper or Plastic?