Environmental groups and beverage redemption centers joined arms Thursday to oppose changes in the state’s bottle bill.
Sen. Bob Hartwell, D-Bennington, chair of the Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee, proposes removing liquor and large containers from the state’s beverage redemption law — the bottle bill — as part of a larger solid waste bill.
After two weeks of committee testimony centered on the bottle bill – a program some lawmakers want to expand and others want to repeal – Hartwell is ready to drop the provision altogether.
“It’s a waste of time,” Hartwell said. He will ask the committee whether to shed the bottle section as soon as Friday, he said.
The committee heard testimony Thursday on S.208, a bill designed to help solid waste districts prepare to implement the state’s universal recycling law, which by next year will mandate recycling, sending new volumes of material through the system.
But the legislation also scales back a part of the bottle bill. Under the program, the state must collect liquor and large containers from redemption centers, which is costing the state money, Hartwell says.
However, many see the proposed cuts as a portend of its eventual repeal. And the bill, which was established in the 1970s to control litter, has a sturdy following, both from environmental groups and those who earn extra cash by redeeming the 5-cent deposit on carbonated beverage containers.
A 2013 report on the program states it costs consumers, distributors and the state more than $11 million per year. Beverage distributors, who want the program repealed, say it is an unnecessary expense that could be averted with a more comprehensive recycling program the state has already designed to be phased in over the next several years.
Testifying before the committee Thursday, Paul Burns, executive director of the Vermont Public Interest Research Group, an environmental watchdog group, said the program is not as expensive as experts say.
The report includes the $3 million it costs consumers to bring their bottles to the redemption center. Burns believes this figure is misleading.
“That’s a choice of the consumer,” Burns said in an interview. “And in most cases, we believe, they are doing it in conjunction with a trip to the grocery or at least buying something else at the redemption center.”
Burns said the report inflates the cost of the program so lawmakers will consider its repeal.
“They’re at least grossly over-inflating the costs to make it appear as though the bottle bill program is more inefficient than it is in reality,” he said. “They’re looking for some way to justify elimination.”
Burns said the group hired to draft the report, DSM Environmental Services, a consulting firm from Windsor, testified against the bill.
“It wouldn’t be appropriate to hire Donald Trump to come up with your plan for dealing with climate change,” Burns said. “And in this case, we didn’t think it was appropriate to hire DSM. We were concerned that their data would be skewed.”
He said there is no other program that can achieve the similar diversion rates – the amount of material kept out of the state’s landfill. About 80 percent of the materials covered under the bottle bill are recycled or reused; however, the state’s overall recycling rate has remained at about 35 percent.
Even if these bottles were recycled, he said, much of it would be contaminated when mixed with other materials.
“And in the case of glass, if they have any market for it at all, it’s landfill cover or it’s road construction material,” Burns said. “That’s not recycling in the way most people think about it.”
The committee took up legislation last year to expand the bottle bill, S.65, by including more containers.
“There’s one in here that’s on the wall,” Hartwell said, referencing the bill, “which is where it is going to stay.”
