Container and Packaging
Recycling UPDATE
Summer/Fall 2001 Issue

BOSTON - The Massachusetts Energy Committee recently held hearings on competing proposals to amend the state's 18-year-old bottle bill. One of the measures,

She cited a national trend of increased wasting of all container types, despite a tripling in the number of curbside programs in the last decade.

H. 2155, would have expanded the bottle bill to cover non-carbonated beverages, including sports drinks, bottled water, wine and spirits, and single-serving iced tea, juice drinks, herbal beverages.

"Although 50 percent of the U.S. population now has access to curbside," she told the committee, "Americans waste 143,000 tons more aluminum cans, 245,000 tons more glass bottles,

Another bill, H. 2888, was a beverage-industry backed repeal proposal, which would have phased out the state's container deposit law over three years and attempted to replace it with "comprehensive" recycling programs in public places and increased curbside recycling access

Both the repeal bill and the expansion bill were tabled for study by the committee. Local news media characterized the situation as a stalemate, with legislators loathe to repeal the popular law for fear of public opposition and reluctant to give up about $28 million in revenues that accrue to the state annually from unclaimed deposits. At the same time, the beverage industry has so far blocked expansion efforts

CRI Senior Research Associate Jennifer Gitlitz told the committee that repealing the bottle law would be a setback for the state's recycling rate. "Nationally, the recycling rate for beverage containers is only 44 percent. The 72 percent redemption rate in Massachusetts is evidence that the bottle bill is working effectively."

and 386,000 tons more plastic bottles than they did in 1992, when only 15 percent of the country had access to curbside recycling." She called the beverage industry's portrayal of the debate as a choice between curbside and bottle bills a "false dichotomy," arguing that because so many beverages are now consumed away from home, both systems are necessary to give consumers maximum opportunities and incentives to recycle.

Gitlitz suggested updating the law to include the so-called "new age" non-carbonated beverages, which were not a market presence when the Massachusetts bottle bill was enacted in 1983. "From 1993 to 1999, non-carbonated beverages sales increased by almost 50 percent nationally; from 23.5 to 33 billion," she said. "They now comprise almost 20 percent of the total U.S. beverage market."