This photo was taken inside my garage, which has become a graveyard for beer and soda bottles waiting to be returned to the store, actually make that two stores, since I will need to go to both a liquor store for my craft beer bottles and a grocery store for the rest.
(And I can tell from the winter brew labels, that many of these containers have been here since at least last Christmas.)
The photo below is the City of Newton-issued, taxpayer-funded, single stream recycling bin which takes away my family’s water, juice and any other non-carbonated drink containers weekly.
In November voters will go to polls to consider a ballot question that would essentially require that we schlep those any water, juice and any other non-carbonated drink containers to the store too — or else sacrifice the nickle deposit that will be added to their purchase.
Now I consider myself an environmentally sensitive fellow. I bring recycling home from the office, since we have no pick up there. Last night I brought home two plastic cups from a restaurant in Norwood because the fellow there told me they don’t recycle. And earlier this year I actually signed the expanded bottle bill petition.
But now I’m having second thoughts.
I just don’t get why we should have to drag those bottles to the store when we can place them at our curb and achieve the exact same objective.
And before you say, “But Greg, this is Newton, what about the rest of the state?” note that 90 percent of Massachusetts households already have some type of municipal recycling.
I also don’t agree with George Bachrach, president of the Environmental League of Massachusetts — and a fellow I often agree with — when he told the Herald that if voters expand the bill, “there’s no cost to the consumer; everyone gets their nickel back and we end up with cleaner roads and cleaner parks.”
Sure there’s a cost. There’s my time and there’s the fossil fuel we’ll use bringing them to the store. And there’s the ugliness of having to look at all those containers gaining dust in my garage.
I’m open to doing the right thing for the environment on Nov. 4. I’m open to changing my mind on this. But right now, I’m just not seeing the reason to support this.
I know from friends in other communities that recycling isn’t nearly as easy in many of them as it is here. For many, it’s as onerous as you find bringing bottles back to the store (or maybe more so, since the municipal recycling facilities have very restricted hours.) One friend would have to pay to recycle at her town’s facility! Needless to say, she doesn’t. So saying municipal recycling is “available” doesn’t say anything about how well used they are. If you look at the percentage of waste recycled, most MA communities fare much worse than Newton.
So then perhaps the ballot question we should have had instead would require municipalities offer recycling programs that reach a specific standard.
Let’s face it, the big issue is the little “nip” bottles and there’s no economic incentive there since I suspect the motivation for throwing them out the window is to destroy the evidence.
Throwing everything in the recycle bin seems like a double economic benefit to public taxes — the state keeps the nickle, and Newton gets the benefit of the recycling volume. Going to the store and putting them in a machine one by one isn’t worth it.
If there’s any benefit to the expansion of the bottle bill — it’s that in high traffic areas less will remain in the trash cans because homeless and others will take anything with a deposit.
80% of water bottles end up in landfills. This is likely as most water bottles are consumed when people are away from home. Most businesses don’t recycle, but they do collect soda cans for the deposit. Most communities don’t have recycling in public areas. If you don’t care about getting you deposit back consider leaving them in a separate box next to your cans. There are quite a few people who would be happy to take them for you. Also consider recycling still costs the city money.
@Alicia: Reasonable points but let me play devil’s advocate here…
If communities don’t offer recycling in public areas, then why isn’t changing that, the law we should be looking to pass?
If businesses aren’t recycling, why not work on ways that would make that easier?
And I do care about getting my deposit back. I work hard for my non-profit salary.
Greg, your fossil fuel argument doesn’t ring true to me. Are you making a special trip to the redemption center or are you going to the grocery/liquor store anyway?
Newton had a recycling program long before I moved here. But you would not know it if you look in the parks and playgrounds. My children were never allowed to buy bottled water (talk about needless carbon footprint for disposable/recyclable plastic bottles). But after every athletic event I ever went to, there were literally hundreds of those bottles overflowing the barrels and littering the field. You find them along the edge of the highway, on the sidewalk, you name it. That would happen a lot less if they were subject to the bottle bill, because when you have a financial incentive, albeit a small one for each unit, you are less likely to throw away that bottle at Cold Spring park or wherever youth soccer, softball, lacrosse, little league or whatever other sports event is held.
The other issue is that the revenue from recycling is nothing compared to what it used to be. Communities offer free recycling now, but there may come a time when it is no longer cost effective to do so. My hope is that day is far off. But the collapse of the market for recycled paper is a cautionary tale. Moreover, if your family is anything like mine (My wife and I and three adults children, God help us), that recycling bin is almost overflowing every week. We could use all the extra room we can get.
So quit whining and get your returnable bottles over to the redemption center.
Sure Ted, the fossil fuel thing is a red herring.
Litter is certainly the best argument in support of the bill.
On the other hand, suggesting we need a bottle bill because our curbside recycling bins aren’t big enough, has to be the worst argument in favor.
Alicia is saying most businesses do not recycle… I find that one very unintuitive. Sizable business these days want to display an image of green and LEED friendly. Aside from the office environment, chain retail (including food service) also is doing that. What volume of business is not recycling?
I intend to vote against this come November and I would like to see the existing bottle bill repealed. Right now, many stores that sell drinks that require deposits do not accept returns. The machines at many other stores will not permit you to return a bottle or can for a product that they don’t sell (which I understand) and also aren’t programmed to accept returns of bottles or cans of some products that they do sell. So you end up either leaving some bottles or cans by the machines or dragging them back with you. Not to mention the times that you find a machine that is not accepting redemptions because it’s full or you find yourself behind the person who is carrying the trash bag full of cans who doesn’t mind standing there for 20 minutes and wouldn’t dream of letting you step in front of him/her to return the few bottles/cans that you have.
The current system isn’t working. Recycling is working. Why expand a system that doesn’t work?
Y’Know, I don’t always agree with Greb Reibman, but when he makes a good point, I’ll give him credit for it and he made a good point with his blog post regarding the bottle bill.
I also agree with Ethan’s point in that I think it is time to repeal the existing bottle bill. We have single-stream recycling for everything, including beverage containers. The motivation behind the bottle-bill expansion is the estimated $24 Million in annual unclaimed deposits.
http://massbudget.org/report_window.php?loc=budget_monitor_gov_fy15.html
If the problem is primarily litter of single-serve beverage containers, than why not limit deposits to small containers, say, under one liter? Then, we can just treat it as a tax on the least environmentally-conscious packaging — to Joshua’s point — with less of a burden on households with larger beverage containers that are more likely to make their way into the recycle stream. And why bother with 5 cents? Adjusted for inflation from 1981, it ought to be more like 13 cents now. For bottled water, double the amount 🙂
Greg, I understand why you are asking the question. Returning bottles is not my favorite task either, but I think there are good reasons for supporting an updated bottle bill (UBB.)
First, the the Bottle Bill does work. It is a proven tool for increasing recycling rates while also reducing litter and saving energy. Eighty percent of bottles and cans currently covered under the Bottle Bill are recycled instead of buried or burned. But only 20% of containers not covered under this deposit law end up being recycled. This also means that an UBB would be important in extending the life of our existing landfills.
The argument to repeal of the program altogether and focus all efforts on boosting curbside recycling rings hollow with me. This approach pushes all the costs onto communities, giving businesses a free pass. In-store collection is intended to complement, rather than replace, curbside recycling. Having both programs is proven to work to maximize recycling efforts.
According to Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection data, an updated bottle bill would save communities an estimated $7 million per year in combined trash collection and disposal.
Businesses in Newton, and most communities, pay a higher tax rate than most homeowners, without receiving many of the same services — including curb side trash and recycling pick up.
So no “free pass” here. In fact, quite the opposite.
I’ve always viewed the bottle bill as a way to reduce litter. To my eye it’s worked. I’ve been frustrated at the fact that non carbonated and bottled water has been exempt because it’s clear they are the drink container litter in our state. I’m all for the 5 cents to rid our landscape of bottles and cans.
The proposed update to the Bottle Bill was voted on by our legislators twice in the last several years (the people we pay to study these issues) and failed each time. The idea of expanding a complex redistribution system where instead of something entering the recycling process at home, it is given to a retailer who gives it to a distributor who give it to some other provider and eventually it gets recycled after lots of extra mileage and expense is 1980 thinking, not 2014. Greg has it 100% right on– work on this with local incentives. It’s not very insightful at all to say charging each homeowner generates a return to local municipalities somewhere between $20,000 and $35,000 each ($4MM – $7MM in combination) and cite that as a public benefit. That’s chicken feed, and it’s OUR MONEY!
Greg, I am referring to the retailers, bottlers, trade groups and supermarkets who should share the cost of the end disposal of the products they produce and sell. Otherwise the cost of disposal/recycling ends up disproportionately as a municipal responsibility. A key to the responsible management of solid waste is to have a plan on the end of life/disposal of each product, and this responsibility should be shared between producers and consumers alike.
It is true that businesses pay a higher tax, and perhaps I should be giving that more credit.
Here is a list of the members of trade group, Comprehensive Recycling Works (a very misleading name) who is lobbying against the UBB: http://comprehensiverecyclingworks.com/about-us/
I think I understand how these bills work but I don’t believe that the the problem stated, littering, is helped with or without an expansion. With a limited sample, I was walking from Newton Highlands to the Village Bank on Winchester St. My path included portions of Walnut, Lincoln St (detour for a muffin) and Centre St under Rt 9. Surprisingly with was little litter but in the waste I saw one water bottle, two soda cans (covered by the current law), many forms of wrappers (perhaps cigarette cartons and wrappers should have a deposit), plastic and paper cups and an ice cream take out container. All of this is covered under the state’s littering provision which I would think needed to be better enforced to solve the actual problem.
Notice that I did not mention any plastic shopping bags, which is also under regulatory consideration.
I find it interesting to note that Alison is concerned about the $7 Million annually that Massachusetts communities spent to deal with the costs of disposing of litter but when she debated Allan Ciccone in the Aldermanic race, she refused to acknowledge the $8 Million annual cost Newton spends to educate 583 out-of-district students in Newton Public Schools and pretended it cost less.
I support increased environmental stewardship, but believe there are alternatives to increased government taxes and new government regulations. America went from being the Land of the Free to the Land of the Government Permit and I think we’ve given government too much power & money already.
Isn’t it interesting that the good citizens of Newton spend so much time and energy strategizing about recycling plastic bottles and bags and so little attention to the recycling of our housing stock. We don’t give a moments notice to the environmental loss of a whole house, we dismiss the preservationists on the Newton Historical Commission, and we encourage, by lax zoning regulation the demolition left right and center of our affordable housing stock. And we like to call ourselves environmentalists ! ?
We should eliminate all bottle deposits. If this happened, would I throw my bottles in the street or in a park? No. Would any fellow bloggers? I don’t think so. If I am wrong, and you think you will start throwing bottles around Newton, tell me. I go to many kids soccer games and I don’t see water bottle litter. Most people are pretty responsible. Most people are good people. Let’s not waste their time, the time of retail stores, and the time of state employees.
Jeffrey, I agree with your position on bottle deposits. The current situation punishes well behaved people more than it changes the behavior of inconsiderate people. I also agree with your observation about the behavior of players, coaches and crowds at youth sports games for the most part. The exception is the general perception that throwing bottle, coffee cups, candy wrappers, etc under the metal grandstands is like using a giant, magic trash / recycle receptacle. Many of the youth fields do not have the metal stands so you do not see the problem at those fields.
Also I will burst your bubble by including the lack of consideration displayed by the attendees at high school sporting events and adult sport leagues. The lack of the opportunity to demonstrate a good role model for youths seems to be all it takes for people to leave their trash on the fields.
BTW, the state will never give up their money making scheme from the unclaimed deposits. That is also why the state will expand the bill both with items on the list and the per bottle fee (I mean deposit). If the state really wanted to solve the trash problem, they would charge the $0.05 deposit and pay out $0.10 for each return.
I agree with Jeff and Patrick’s posts.
I’d like to know what percentage of containers with deposits get returned and what percentage get placed in the green recycling bins. Returnable soda and milk bottles were a common feature in Massachusetts during the 1950’s and I’m pretty certain you could get 5 cents back for 12 ounce soda bottles and a dime for quart bottles. I remember collecting $1.00 for 10 Canada Dry Ginger Ale bottles sometime during that period. That was a nice chunk of change back then, so you didn’t see much littering of deposit type bottles back then. 5 and 10 cents is still the most you can get back on these containers. This isn’t enough to make it worthwhile for most people in today’s time stressed economy. They will just place the empties in the recycling bin and absorb the loss. Up the deposit to something more than a quarter a bottle and we might see this really take off. On the other hand, it might spark a revolution.
Bob, putting the returnables in the recycle bin is a win/win for the state. The state keeps the $0.05 collected and there is an increase in recycled items (good news for the green effort). That is an argument to keep the fee (I mean deposit) at $0.05 and expand the list of items on the returnable list, especially if those added items are already being put in the recycle bins.
BOB BURKE — Didn’t they just wash them out and reuse them back at that time? I wonder why that concept went away?
@Hoss. I’ve wondered the same thing. The razed glass lettering on Coke bottles used to turn almost a faded white they were reused so many times.
I think the bottle bill comes from that phrase “If I had a nickel for every…” I pick up bottle and cans in Newton’s public parks all the time, and don’t do it for the pocket change. These are places where city-provided recycling bins are within eyeshot. It’s just bad form to leave your trash in public parks or open areas. What are children being taught? Here is a thought, after every soccer or baseball games, all attendees are instructed to take their trash with them and dispose if it responsibly. What a concept!
To add fuel to the fire, our city does not do a good job of emptying their park trash and recycling bins with any frequency. It’s disgusting.
Eliminate the all bottle bills. It’s just nickel and dime taxes for the Commonwealth.