Bottle law: It’s about the money

OP-ED | Paul McMorrow

July 29, 2011|By Paul McMorrow

(istockphoto )

A BILL to expand the bottle law in Massachusetts is supposed to rid landfills of plastic water bottles by slapping a five-cent deposit on the containers. It’s also supposed to pump $20 million into state coffers, as policymakers expect consumers to give up the nickel deposits on hundreds of millions of bottles every year. There’s a reason those two outcomes appear to be at odds with each other: They are.

The bill pits environmentalists against beverage industry interests. The state’s environmental lobby, as it does every legislative session, says that beverage buying habits have left the current bottle law behind, and as a result, state landfills are choked with recyclables; they’re pushing to bring water bottles, juices, and sports drinks under the nickel-deposit regime currently governing beer and soda. Just as reliably, the folks who make, distribute, and sell the bottles say that price hikes will be inevitable, and will break the backs of hardworking families.

Lost in the back and forth is the fact that the bottle bill is not about environmental policy. Like many fights on Beacon Hill, this is more about money and political control than it is about effective policy.

Currently, nickel deposits on beer and soda containers serve to reward those who manage to resist the overwhelming urge to toss their empties into a lake, as well as those who haul their empties to a package store, rather than dumping them in a municipal recycling bin. The existing law was once structured to promote wider recycling efforts, beyond beer and soda. Unclaimed deposits had been earmarked for a Clean Environment Fund, which was supposed to help spread and subsidize municipal recycling efforts. Then-Governor Mitt Romney and the Legislature raided the fund back in 2003, in the name of balancing a budget. Unclaimed deposits have remained in the state’s general fund ever since, even in years when the budget was flush with tax receipts.

The Clean Environment Fund makes a comeback in the bottle bill being debated on Beacon Hill. But everybody knows the Legislature doesn’t normally unhand piles of money, especially eight years after snatching them. Backers of the bottle bill hope to dedicate a portion of unclaimed bottle deposits toward environmental efforts through the Clean Environment Fund. Because unclaimed deposits are projected to grow by $20 million annually, lawmakers wouldn’t actually be forfeiting much cash. The bill grows the pool of unclaimed deposits, and everybody would get to keep a piece of the action.

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