Right now, a Committee of Massachusetts legislators are meeting to finalize the Climate Omnibus Bill. The Committee (Senators Barrett, Creem and Tarr, and Representatives Roy, Haggerty, and Jones) will determine whether the bill includes the amendment to modernize the Commonwealth’s Bottle Bill program.
If included in the Climate Bill, the updated bottle return program would not only raise the deposit fee from five to ten cents per beverage, but also expand the program to include new types of beverages that were not around in the early 1980s when the Bottle Bill first passed.
82% of registered voters support modernizing the Bottle Bill.
Now is the time to ask your legislators to put pressure on the members of the Committee.
Why support a modernized bottle bill?
- You’re tired of paying for the disposal and curbside recycling of beverage containers. The producers should be required to pay a handling fee that pays for bottles and cans to be recycled and refilled.
- You’re tired of picking up litter and paying taxes for our cities and towns to pick up litter. Modernizing the Bottle Bill would significantly reduce the amount of beverage container and non-beverage container litter in the Commonwealth.
- Modernizing the Bottle Bill would help fight climate change. Modernizing the Bottle Bill would reduce greenhouse gas emissions equivalent of taking 39,800 cars off the road for a year, or powering over 40,300 Massachusetts households for a year – and it won’t cost taxpayers a cent!
- Modernizing the Bottle Bill would mean that glass and plastic bottles would actually be recycled. Right now, glass bottles are ground up and used to build roads and landfill cover and plastic bottles are downcycled into textiles, not made into bottles.
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