"Bridging the Divide" over the Bottle Bill Ballot Initiative

BOTTLE BILL OPPONENT EYES “CONSENSUS” ON BALLOT ALTERNATIVE

By Andy Metzger
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE

STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, MARCH 6, 2014…..An opponent of the proposal to expand the bottle bill said Thursday he prefers trying to hammer out a consensus alternative to the initiative petition heading towards the November ballot.

House Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy Chairman John Keenan, a Salem Democrat who has announced he will not run for re-election this year, said bridging the divide over the perennial issue is something he hopes to accomplish this year.

“I don’t know what the over-under is on this ballot initiative. But I will echo Representative Peake, as well. I think the petition process, the ballot initiative is a very sloppy way to do legislation,” Keenan said at a hearing on the initiative petition Thursday. He said, “I would much prefer to work together with you folks and folks on the other side to hammer out some sort of bill that has a consensus.”

Rep. Sarah Peake, a proponent of expanding the bottle bill so there are deposits on more than just beer and carbonated beverages, described the referendum heading toward the November ballot as “more draconian” than what the Legislature could produce.

“I’m concerned about beer bottlers. I’m concerned about the juice industry, but if we let this go to the ballot, those concerns go into the wind,” Peake said. She said, “Let’s see if we can do what we’re elected to do as legislators.”

Opponents of expanding the deposit law have backed an alternative (H 2513/ S 379) filed by Sen. Michael Moore, a Millbury Democrat, and Rep. John Binienda, a Worcester Democrat, that would phase out the 5-cent deposit on cans and bottles, replacing it with a 1-cent fee paid by distributors and bottlers, funding recycling initiatives.

The scope of the bottle redemption law has been a perennial issue on Beacon Hill, as supporters of expansion say it will reduce litter by closing a nonsensical exemption for water, iced tea and juice bottles. Opponents say bottle deposits are an outdated and inefficient method to boost recycling, and one that burdens retailers with collecting the old bottles.

“What other retail business needs to take back its customers garbage on the selling floor?” asked Bob Selby, owner of Kappy’s liquor stores in Peabody and Danvers. He told the News Service, “We get snakes; we get syringes; we get used condoms.”

Gardner Mayor Mark Hawke, whose city has a “pay as you throw” trash pickup and “single stream” recycling, said cigarette butts and lottery tickets make up the majority of the trash he sees and a bottle bill expansion will only drive more people north of the border, to New Hampshire, to shop.

Bottle bill proponents say curbside pickup is only one aspect of preventing litter and boosting recycling, and the bill’s expansion is aimed at beverages people drink on-the-go, which is why liquor and wine are exempt. They argue the 5-cent deposit will create a financial incentive to recycle those bottles.

Peake said she’d spoken to a member of a dune buggy association, who participated in a beach cleanup and said 99 percent of the trash they picked up was abandoned water bottles.

“Beer and going to the beach go together like peanut butter and jelly, but they were not picking up beer cans,” Peake said.

Though a bottle bill expansion cleared the Senate on a voice vote last session, it has never passed the House and never gone to a recorded vote. Keenan has previously voted against the measure.

“This is my last term, and this is probably one of the unfinished pieces of business that I don’t want to leave behind,” Keenan said.

Sierra Club Massachusetts Chapter lobbyist Phil Sego and MassPIRG Executive Director Janet Domenitz said the alternative proposed by Moore and Binienda is not a compromise.

“Senator Moore’s bill has been put out as a quote-unquote alternative, and it repeals the bottle bill. So if that’s someone’s idea of a conversation, then we’re not for it,” Domenitz said.

“We’d love to talk. We’ve had no communication from the opponents that they even want to talk, and we have been saying for – oh gosh – 12 years, ‘Let’s talk,’” Sego told the News Service.

Sego said he has spoken with Keenan a number of times, and said, “He has not indicated any movement towards a compromise . . . It would be great to get together with him, people on the other side of the table, other groups.”

Lawmakers are apprehensive about the ballot process, which has been used in years past as leverage and as legislating, creating both the law decriminalizing marijuana and establishing legal, medical marijuana.

“We’ve seen what happened with the medical marijuana, where you let that go to the ballot, and while I supported that concept, I think there were some issues in how that was implemented,” said Rep. Josh Cutler, a Duxbury Democrat.

“We are preparing to go to the ballot,” said Sego. He said if a bottle bill expansion becomes law in time, he believes he and others could convince the petitioners to withdraw the ballot initiative.

“Absent some action on our part before late June, early July, this question will go to the ballot,” said Rep. Jonathan Hecht, a Watertown Democrat, and the lead sponsor of a separate bill (H 2943) to expand the bottle deposit law. He said, “We’re all going to be asked by our voters to take a stand on this issue.”

END
03/06/2014

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Statement on the Bottle Bill Ballot Initiative Hearing

Statement from Janet Domenitz of MassPIRG regarding the Updated Bottle Bill Campaign:

Thursday, March 6, 2014

Today, the Joint Committee on Telecom, Utilities and Energy holds a hearing on one single piece of legislation: the Updated Bottle Bill, the proposal that would add the 5c deposit to beverages like water, iced teas, and sports drinks. Containers with a 5c deposit are recycled at a rate of 80%, while containers without a deposit are recycled at a rate of 23%.  The goal of updating the bottle bill is to reduce container litter and increase recycling.

Although this bill has been pending in the Legislature for over a decade, today’s hearing is specifically devoted to considering the Updated Bottle Bill initiative petition, which was circulated in the fall of 2013 and garnered over 130,000 signatures in less than seven weeks. The petition, similar to the legislation, gets its own hearing per the initiative and referendum process in the state’s Constitution. Meant to give legislators a ‘last chance’ to act before a petition is put on the ballot, proponents see today as a ‘first.’

“Although we have been before the Legislature lobbying for the Updated Bottle Bill for years, this is the first time we appear before this Committee with over 130,000 signatures from residents in each of the Commonwealth’s 351 cities and towns,” remarked Phil Sego of the Massachusetts Sierra Club. “This is a game changer.”

The 130,000 signatures placed the Bottle Bill Update at the top of a crowded field of petitions last fall, including a proposal to increase the minimum wage. Among the scores of groups and organizations which helped collect signatures were the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts, the Garden Club Federation of Massachusetts, the Emerald Necklace Conservancy, the Arborway Coalition, the West Boylston Solid Waste Action Team, the Environmental League of MA, and MASSPIRG.

“If the Legislature doesn’t move this bill along to the finish line, they will be snatching defeat from the jaws of victory,” said Janet Domenitz, Executive Director of MASSPIRG. “I think our coalition has now proven that the only thing more popular with the voters than the Updated Bottle Bill is motherhood and apple pie.” 

For more information-
Janet Domenitz, 617-292-4800, Janet.Domenitz@MASSPIRG.org Phil Sego, 617-423-5775, Phil@SierraClubMass.or  

Hearing for the Bottle Bill Ballot Initiative

On Thursday, March 6th, 2014, there will be a special hearing regarding the Bottle Bill Ballot Initiative. It will take place at 10am in room A1 at the Statehouse. Please show your support by attending this hearing and urging legislators to stop delaying the Updated Bottle Bill!

New Report on U.S Recycling Rates Reveals Poor 20-Year Track Record

Press Release

Container Recycling Institute shows sales of disposable beverage containers have increased while recycling rates have stagnated

LOS ANGELES—October 29, 2013—The Container Recycling Institute (CRI) has just released its signature report on container recycling rates and trends in the United States. Based on more than two dozen data sources, from the beverage market to U.S. census tables, “Bottled Up: Beverage Container Recycling Stagnates (2000-2010),” shows that sales of disposable beverage containers have grown dramatically—up by 22 percent from 2000-2010—with per capita consumption soaring by 8 percent over the same period. Yet even as beverage sales increased, the rate at which we recycled the empty containers declined.

Of the 243 billion beverage packages sold in the U.S. in 2010—glass bottles, plastic bottles and aluminum cans as well as foil pouches, gable-top cartons and other non-traditional containers—153 billion were either landfilled, littered or incinerated. This put the national wasting rate for 2010 at 63 percent, a nearly 10 percent increase over 2000, when the wasting rate stood at 59 percent, and a whopping 20 percent jump since 1990, when our non-recycling rate for containers stood at approximately 52 percent.

In other words, between 1990 and 2010—a period that saw almost feverish growth and investment in municipal recycling programs, education and infrastructure—Americans have persisted in wasting more beverage containers than they’ve recycled.

The report suggests numerous reasons for this imbalance, among them the surge in bottled water sales (up more than 400 percent since 2000) and sales of beverages consumed away from home.

“Recycling rates have stagnated in large part due to a dramatic increase in consumption of these beverages, especially at businesses and in public spaces where recycling bins are scarce,” said Susan V. Collins, president of the Container Recycling Institute. “Another key factor in the decline in recycling rates is the unwillingness of state legislatures to enact effective recycling policies, especially new or expanded container deposit laws.”

Our failure to recycle nearly two out of every three containers has monumental environmental impacts. As the report notes, every beverage container that is not recycled must instead be replaced with a new container made from virgin raw materials. Extracting and processing these materials requires far more energy—and generates more pollutants—than making containers from recycled feedstock.

For example, if the 153 billion containers wasted in 2010 had been diverted back to the manufacturing stream, the U.S. could have saved the equivalent of 203 trillion BTUs of energy— enough to power nearly all the homes in the cities of Los Angeles and Chicago combined.

This level of recycling would also have eliminated the release of 11.6 million tons of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission—that’s roughly one-fifth of total GHG represented by America’s municipal solid waste, and equivalent to taking nearly 2.3 million cars off the road.

“To realize meaningful energy savings and reduce the GHG emissions associated with beverage consumption, beverage container recycling must dramatically increase across the country,” added Collins. “As the report points out, minor percentage changes in recycling rates won’t cut it. If we are to adequately reduce the environmental consequences of extracting, processing, manufacturing and shipping billions of short-lived containers, national recycling rates for all major container materials must edge above 90 percent. And the only recycling method that has shown to achieve anywhere near that level of recovery is the refundable container deposit, an early form of extended producer responsibility.”

As the report shows, the 11 U.S. states with container deposit laws in 2010 consistently recycled 66 percent to 96 percent of the containers covered under their laws, whereas the average recycling rate for all beverage containers in non-deposit states was just 30 percent. Even though deposit states represent only 28 percent of the U.S. population, in 2010 they accounted for 46 percent of all containers recycled during that year.

“Bottled Up” notes that if even a modest deposit of five cents were placed on all disposable beverage containers sold in the U.S., a 75-percent recycling rate could be achieved across the board. The report also makes it clear that if American beverage consumption continues to follow current growth trends, we must do more to capture and recycle the billions of containers consumed away from home.

Finally, the report emphasizes that failing to recycle these containers has economic consequences as well as environmental ones. Between 2000 and 2010, for instance, the scrap value of our wasted beverage containers exceeded $22 billion. And that’s not counting the economic impact of tens of thousands of domestic jobs that, according to an earlier CRI report, would be generated by a national container deposit.

The report can be downloaded at CRI's website. http://www.container-recycling.org

Get your copy today!
Click Here to Get a Download Link http://www.container-recycling.org

About the Container Recycling Institute (CRI)

CRI is a non-profit research and education organization whose mission is to make North America a global model for the collection and recycling of packaging materials to protect the environment and build a strong, sustainable economy. We collaborate with communities and companies to attain our vision of a world where no material is wasted.  For more information on CRI, visit http://www.container-recycling.org.

Bottle Bill Advocates Turn in Double the Needed Signatures

Press Release

Supporters of a ballot Initiative to update the state’s Bottle Deposit Law gathered on the steps of the Secretary of State’s office today to announce that they collected almost double the number of signatures needed to qualify for the November 2014 ballot.

“From Salem to Stockbridge, from North Adams to New Bedford, we have signatures and support from citizens of every single one of the state’s 351 cities and towns,” said Janet Domenitz, Executive Director of MASSPIRG. “It’s hard to find someone who objects to reducing litter and increasing recycling.”

Although certification requires 68,911 valid signatures, the Updated Bottle Bill campaign gathered over 130,000 signatures, which is nearly double what is needed. “I carried two clipboards most of the time, to keep up with the crowds who wanted to sign,” said Andrew Fish, field coordinator for the petition drive and MASSPIRG associate.

The state’s bottle bill, the nickel deposit on soda, was originally passed by the state legislature over 30 years ago. The most successful recycling system in the state by far, the deposit covers only carbonated beverages, as those drinks were what was consumed when the original bill passed. Now water, juices, and sports drinks are rapidly taking over the marketplace, and there has been a sharp increase in litter of those types of containers. Recycling rates of soda bottles and cans, covered by the 5¢ deposit is nearly 80%, but only 23% of water, juice, and other non-covered beverages are recycled. Legislation to update the law has been pending on Beacon Hill for almost a decade. Earlier this year, supporters decided to take the proposal directly to the public.

This citizen-driven effort was spearheaded by a broad coalition of the state’s environmental, civic and advocacy groups including the Sierra Club, MASSPIRG, the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts, the Environmental League of Massachusetts, the Emerald Necklace Conservancy, the South Shore Recycling Cooperative, and the Garden Club Federation of Massachusetts have been gathering signatures statewide. “We originally hoped to get 100,000 signatures, however we met with so much success and positive feedback, that we just kept going,” said Lynn Wolbarst of the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts.

Now with 130,000 signatures turned in – more than 105,000 of which were certified by city and town clerks-- attention will turn back to the Legislature, which has several months to act on this bill before it heads to the November 2014 ballot.

“It defies logic, why the Legislature has sat on such a popular, common sense, and money-saving bill for so many years,” noted Janet Domenitz of MASSPIRG. “Maybe this overwhelming signature drive will finally get the message to them to pass this bill.”
“Big business opponents have already started their ‘trash talk,’ calling this proposal a ‘tax,’” commented Ken Pruitt of the Environmental League of Massachusetts. “The public isn’t going to swallow that nonsense.”

“It’s about litter and recycling,” added Ryan Black of the Sierra Club.  “There’s no other system that even comes close to having the same success.”

# # #

Mass State Secretary Rules that the Bottle Bill Has Enough Signatures for 2014 Ballot

Boston, MA- With the Secretary of State’s office making it official, the Campaign to Update the Bottle Bill announced that its initiative petition qualified today with well over the required amount of signatures.  The top signer of the petition, Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino said: “This is an important day for the City of Boston and for the entire Commonwealth. The passage of this bill will help clean up our neighborhoods, expand recycling, and save cities and towns money at a time when we need it the most."

The Secretary of State’s office issued a letter saying the petition had garnered a total of 94,950 certified signatures, more than 35% of the required 68,911 to qualify. “While an initiative petition drive is never easy,” commented Janet Domenitz, Executive Director of MASSPIRG, “collecting signatures for this bill, which is so widely supported by the public and so long delayed by the Legislature, felt like making a touchdown.”

The bill, which would place a five cent deposit on beverage containers like water, sports drinks, and iced teas, has been pending in the Legislature for approximately a decade. “So many people have called this bill a ‘no brainer’,” said Ryan Black of the Massachusetts Sierra Club, “because they all know what a big improvement this bill would be for our environment.”

The League of Women Voters of Massachusetts, a key organization in the petition drive, deployed members all across the state. “This issue knows no boundaries,” said Lynn Wolbarst of Sharon. “Our League members in Amherst and Gloucester are as enthusiastic as those in Martha’s Vineyard.”

The petition drive succeeded with help from many local and state organizations, including the Environmental League of MA, the Emerald Necklace Conservancy, and the West Boylston Solid Waste Action Team, among others.

# # #

Bottle Bill Advocates Turn in Double the Needed Signatures

Press Release

Supporters of a ballot Initiative to update the state’s Bottle Deposit Law gathered on the steps of the Secretary of State’s office today to announce that they collected almost double the number of signatures needed to qualify for the November 2014 ballot.

“From Salem to Stockbridge, from North Adams to New Bedford, we have signatures and support from citizens of every single one of the state’s 351 cities and towns,” said Janet Domenitz, Executive Director of MASSPIRG. “It’s hard to find someone who objects to reducing litter and increasing recycling.”

Although certification requires 68,911 valid signatures, the Updated Bottle Bill campaign gathered over 130,000 signatures, which is nearly double what is needed. “I carried two clipboards most of the time, to keep up with the crowds who wanted to sign,” said Andrew Fish, field coordinator for the petition drive and MASSPIRG associate.

The state’s bottle bill, the nickel deposit on soda, was originally passed by the state legislature over 30 years ago. The most successful recycling system in the state by far, the deposit covers only carbonated beverages, as those drinks were what was consumed when the original bill passed. Now water, juices, and sports drinks are rapidly taking over the marketplace, and there has been a sharp increase in litter of those types of containers. Recycling rates of soda bottles and cans, covered by the 5¢ deposit is nearly 80%, but only 23% of water, juice, and other non-covered beverages are recycled. Legislation to update the law has been pending on Beacon Hill for almost a decade. Earlier this year, supporters decided to take the proposal directly to the public.

This citizen-driven effort was spearheaded by a broad coalition of the state’s environmental, civic and advocacy groups including the Sierra Club, MASSPIRG, the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts, the Environmental League of Massachusetts, the Emerald Necklace Conservancy, the South Shore Recycling Cooperative, and the Garden Club Federation of Massachusetts have been gathering signatures statewide. “We originally hoped to get 100,000 signatures, however we met with so much success and positive feedback, that we just kept going,” said Lynn Wolbarst of the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts.

Now with 130,000 signatures turned in – more than 105,000 of which were certified by city and town clerks-- attention will turn back to the Legislature, which has several months to act on this bill before it heads to the November 2014 ballot.

“It defies logic, why the Legislature has sat on such a popular, common sense, and money-saving bill for so many years,” noted Janet Domenitz of MASSPIRG. “Maybe this overwhelming signature drive will finally get the message to them to pass this bill.”
“Big business opponents have already started their ‘trash talk,’ calling this proposal a ‘tax,’” commented Ken Pruitt of the Environmental League of Massachusetts. “The public isn’t going to swallow that nonsense.”

“It’s about litter and recycling,” added Ryan Black of the Sierra Club.  “There’s no other system that even comes close to having the same success.”

# # #