To Avoid A Plastic Future, New York Must Update The Bottle Bill | Opinion
By Judith Enck | January 7, 2022 | USA Today
We are turning our rivers and ocean into landfills. Landfills clogged with plastic pollution.
Earlier this month, the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine rang the alarm bell in a new report Reckoning with the U.S. Role in Global Ocean Plastic Waste, which documented a massive amount of plastics entering the ocean. The report found that the US produced 42 million tons of plastic waste in 2016 alone — more than any other country. And as a stroll through any American store will prove, plastic production has been on the rise since the 1960s. A great deal of that pollution is beverage bottles from companies like Coke and Pepsi.
While I strongly support recycling, plastics recycling has been an abysmal failure with over 90% of plastics never being recycled. That means the plastic is either sent to a watery grave in the ocean, sent to a landfill or burned at a garbage incinerator. All pose serious problems.
There is something that can be done.
State lawmakers and Gov. Kathy Hochul can take action to modernize New York’s successful beverage container deposit law, known as the Bottle Bill, which turns 40 next year.
Signed into law by Gov. Hugh Carey in 1982, the Bottle Bill, requires a 5-cent refundable deposit be placed on soda, beer, wine coolers (remember them?) and water containers. The law requires stores selling these beverages to accept returns of empty containers for the products they sell and refund the deposits to the consumer.
New York’s Bottle Bill has had a tremendous impact on reducing waste in the state, due to the financial incentive of the deposit. Over its nearly 40-year history, New York’s Bottle Bill has reduced litter and boosted recycling. Roadside container litter has been reduced by 70%. And in 2020, 5.5 billion containers were recycled.
Additionally, states with bottle deposit laws have better recycling rates than non-deposit states. According to the Container Recycling Institute, states with bottle deposit laws have a beverage container recycling rate of around 60%, while non-deposit states only reach about 24%.
Now is the time to modernize the New York Bottle Bill. Michigan and Oregon have already increased their minimum deposit to 10 cents, resulting in an increase in recycling in those states.
Passing a modernized Bottle Bill should also promote the use of refillable containers. Many people think of reusable containers as a new, novel idea, but people my age grew up with them. Prior to the 1980s, it was common for many beverage distributors to use reusable glass containers.
These containers were washed and reused dozens, if not hundreds of times before ultimately being recycled. It’s a tried and true way to create less waste. Crucially, using reusable containers will also reduce carbon emissions, as it decreases the rate of production of single-use plastics.
Last month, my organization Beyond Plastics joined over 100 environmental and community organizations, urging Hochul to modernize the law.
Two important changes to the law are needed:
Expand the types and number of beverage containers covered by the Bottle Bill. Add deposits to non-carbonated beverages such as iced tea and Gatorade. Why not add wine and liquor bottles, including deposits on those tiny liquor bottles called ‘nips’ a common source of litter on streets and beaches?Increase the amount of the deposit to a dime and direct a portion of the additional revenues collected by the state to ensure better compliance and enhance access to redemption opportunities in low-income communities. If the original 5-cent deposit from 1982 were indexed for inflation, the deposit amount today would actually be about 15 cents.
Modernizing the Bottle Bill is an important way for Hochul to move the state to a better future, one with less litter, less plastic pollution in our treasured rivers and the Atlantic Ocean, increased recycling, reduced greenhouse gas emissions, and thousands of additional jobs for New Yorkers.
After 40 years, it is time.