Updated at 5:41 p.m.
A bill that would have expanded Vermont’s bottle deposit law, often called the “bottle bill,” has failed after state senators declined to override Gov. Phil Scott’s veto Tuesday morning.
Seventeen senators voted in favor of the bill and 13 voted against it. The bill would have needed two-thirds of the senators present, or at least 20 on Tuesday, to successfully override the veto.
On Jan. 4, House members voted 112-32 to override Scott’s veto.
Vermont passed its original bottle bill in 1972, before people commonly used single-use containers for beverages such as energy drinks, hard cider and water. The law requires an extra five cents to be added onto certain beverage containers, and consumers can redeem that cost if they take the containers to a redemption center.
H.158 would have marked the law’s first major update, expanding it to include additional types of beverage containers, such as plastic water bottles and glass wine bottles, with a goal of keeping more containers out of the landfill.
In his veto message last year, Scott called the beverage redemption system “labor intensive” and said the state “should instead focus on investing in and improving zero-sort (or blue bin) recycling.” He also cited concerns that H.158 would increase costs for Vermonters.
Senators did not discuss the bill before taking a vote.
Marcie Gallagher, a lobbyist for Vermont Public Interest Research Group, said the bill’s failure is a disappointment for the environmental advocacy group, which has been working to update the bottle bill for years.
Gallagher said the materials that consumers attempt to recycle through the single-stream, “blue bin” method aren’t always recycled in the end. Sometimes the materials, having been combined, are contaminated and hard to use, which can lower their value and make it harder for the recycled material to offset a need for new materials.
Materials salvaged from the beverage redemption system are separated, which makes the material cleaner and easier to use, Gallagher said. Bales made from bottle bill material are “sold for double what single-stream bales are sold for, and virtually 100% is recycled,” she said.
“And then it’s much more likely to be turned into something that can be recycled again,” she said.
More than 75% of the covered bottles have been redeemed in Vermont each year, according to the Vermont Public Interest Research Group. Unclaimed deposits go to the state’s Clean Water Fund.
The law can reduce litter problems because people are incentivized to exchange their empty containers for cash, said Nora Bosworth, an attorney at the Conservation Law Foundation who works on waste issues.
“It’s pretty simple,” she said. “It — consistently, in almost all the states that have bottle bills — cuts litter rates in half.”
Representatives from Casella Waste Systems have testified before lawmakers to express opposition to an updated bottle bill. The redemption system threatens to grab valuable recyclables from their blue-bin system, taking a source of revenue from the company and by extension, hurting customers, according to Jeff Weld, a Casella spokesperson.
Weld told VTDigger he thinks the fact that the Senate sustained Scott’s veto of the bill is “good news for Vermonters from an economic standpoint.” He called the redemption system “redundant.”
“I think a better use of our time would be to come together and recognize the real challenges that are out there when it comes to recycling and to come up with better systems,” he said. “You know, invest that time and effort into new technologies.”
Sen. Richard Westman, R-Lamoille, voted in favor of the bill as it took its first turn through the Senate last year, but voted against it on Tuesday.
Westman served on the Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee, which worked on the bill last session.
“It’s a very close call either way for me,” he told VTDigger. There are two redemption centers in the 10 towns he serves, and one has an updated system that handles bottle bill collection easily, while the other struggles to handle the volume. He said he’s worried that it might be hard for some of his constituents to access the redemption centers.
Westman expressed concern that Vermont isn’t having a larger conversation about waste management, given that the state’s only operating landfill in Coventry is running out of space. And though proponents of the bottle bill think an updated redemption system could be part of the waste reduction solution, Westman pointed to Casella’s argument that moving valuable recycles into the beverage redemption system would make it more financially difficult for the company to recycle effectively.
Gallagher dismissed the argument that the system would hurt Casella so much that it would force the business to operate differently.
“I’d say a cost to Casella, which is a billion-dollar operation that operates in nine northeast states, does not necessarily mean a cost pass-down to Vermonters,” she said.
Gallagher said she still sees a path forward for a modernized bottle bill, which 83% of Vermonters support, according to polling by her organization. The bill was supported by a majority of lawmakers in both chambers, she said.
“There’s some really incredible successes that have happened through this process that I don’t want to lose sight of,” she said.
