Why are Returnables So Difficult?

Massachusetts passed the “Bottle Bill” in 1981 to provide an economic incentive for consumers to return beverage containers for recycling. As of May 2010, about 72% of eligible containers were returned annually. Why not 100%?  Because it’s too difficult to return them!

We’ve got a couple of big green barrels out in our garage. One collects paper and the other plastic, metal, and glass. Weekly we drag the barrels to the curb for environmentally responsible recycling. It’s that easy. We’ve got one more barrel with “5¢” painted on the side of it. Anything with a deposit gets thrown in there. But we can’t take this barrel to the curb. Every few weeks we have to sort the contents, divide plastic from glass and aluminum, and take the containers to a “redemption center” where we again sort and collate.

I went to Eastgate Liquors this weekend. I had nearly two hundred aluminum cans packed into the 12- and 30-pack containers they’d been purchased in. Except this time I was told that if they weren’t all the same brand in each package, I’d need to put them out on the counter and re-sort them. After a brief debate with the attendant, I left the 198 unsorted cans on the counter and walked away without my $9.90.

Massachusetts General Laws, Part 1, Title XV, Chapter 94, Section 323 (b) states: “Except as provided in paragraph (f) [which says they have to be clean], a dealer shall accept from any person during his business hours any empty beverage container of the type, size and brand sold by the dealer within the past sixty days and shall pay that person the refund value of each beverage container returned.” There’s nothing there about sorting by brand. Section 327 says “Any bottler, distributor, redemption center or dealer who violates any provisions of sections three hundred and twenty-one to three hundred and twenty-six, inclusive, shall be subject to a civil penalty for each violation of not more than one thousand dollars.” I’m going to take copy of the law in with me next time and save Eastgate $990.10.

Containers carrying deposits are now the most difficult to recycle – far harder than the milk jugs and water bottles which we easily haul to the curb. In the three decades since the Bottle Bill took effect, the return process has remained largely unchanged: no counting machines, no returns by weight or volume, no aggregation across brands.

There’s an initiative brewing to update the Massachusetts Bottle Bill to expand its coverage to beverages like water and sports drinks. It’s championed by groups like MassPIRG and the Sierra Club and is targeted for the 2014 statewide ballot. I’m totally behind recycling and reuse, but until returning containers for deposit is made easier, I’m against any expansion of the Bottle Bill.