Bottle recycling in Massachusetts has slowly declined over the past few years. Many environmental groups, including MASSPIRG, the Sierra Club and the Container Recycling Institute, cite two major reasons for the decline: the change in the beverage market, and the inadequacy of fees retailers receive as compensation for handling the bottles.
There have been many attempts during the last two decades to improve the original bill, including several pieces of proposed legislation in 2007. None have succeeded.
The bottle bill is based on a simple, cyclical concept. When a retailer buys beverages from a distributor, the retailer pays the distributor a deposit for each bottle. When a consumer purchases a beverage from a retailer, the consumer pays the retailer a deposit (built into the price of the beverage). When the consumer returns the empty beverage container to either a retailer or a redemption center, the consumer recoups the deposit from the retailer. When the retailer returns the bottles and cans to the distributor, the retailer gets back the original deposit, and is usually paid a 2.25-cent handling fee per bottle by the distributor.
The problem with the current system is two-fold: non-carbonated beverages like sports drinks, bottled water and iced teas (which do not require a deposit) have grown to comprise roughly 25 percent of Massachusetts' beverage market since 1983, when those drinks were practically non-existent, and the bottle handling fee hasn't been increased since 1990.
The bottle bill was intended to encompass all bottles on the market. "Had anyone the slightest inkling that in a few years containers filled with water, iced tea and juice would compose 25 percent of the beverage market, I would have absolutely drafted the law to place deposits on these containers as well," said the author of the bill, former State Senator Lois Pines, in testimony before the Massachusetts Joint Committee on Telecommunications and Energy on Oct. 31, 2007. "At the time of passage of the bottle bill, the only other drinks were small cans of pineapple and tomato juice, which needed to be opened at home with a can opener."
Retailers and redemption centers need a handling fee increase, activists say, in order to handle the bottles while remaining viable as businesses. The cost of handling bottles has risen, and the value of the current fee has decreased due to inflation. A number of bills call for increases—anywhere from 75 cents to one dollar per bottle.
"Since 1990, distributors have paid retailers and redemption centers 2.25 cents for each container received," Container Recycling Institute Research Director Jennifer Gitlitz told the state legislature. "This handling fee is not sufficient to meet the increasing expenses of labor and transportation."
Environmentalists also hope to re-establish the Clean Environment Fund, which was dismantled in 2003. The fund was earmarked for projects associated with environmental protection on both the state and local levels. When consumers and retailers don't recycle bottles, the five-cent deposit fee is unclaimed. At the end of each month, distributors must hand over the unclaimed deposits to the state. Until five years ago these fees were funneled into the CEF. Since then, all unclaimed deposits have been absorbed into the state's general fund. In 2003 the unclaimed deposits in Massachusetts totaled $35 million, according to the Container Beverage Institute.
Another proposed bottle bill update would raise the deposit amount. A MASSPIRG-sponsored bill calls for increasing the deposit to 10 cents per bottle. This increase mirrors the policy in place in Michigan, the only state with a 10-cent deposit. Michigan's bottle recycling rate is 97 percent, according to the CRI—the highest rate in the country.
"We looked around the nation at what was working and we saw Michigan," said MASSPIRG's Executive Director Janet Domenitz. "It's working well in Michigan… it really does increase the recycling rate."
There are currently 11 states with bottle bills in place. Seven other states have versions of the law working their ways through legislatures. Of the 11 states with an existing bottle bill, only Maine, Hawaii and California have updated bills which include non-carbonated beverages.
The Joint Committee on Telecommunications and Energy has confirmed that all 2007 legislation calling for bottle bill updates is still being discussed and has not been voted on.
