Reasons to Support your State Bottle Bill

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.