BOTTLE BILL UPDATE

It’s hard to see Maine’s groundbreaking bottle bill as anything but a success. Thirty years ago this summer, the law that required consumers to pay a nickel deposit on each can or bottle of soda or beer and 15 cents on each bottle of wine they purchased went into effect. As its proponents hoped, the law appealed to Mainers’ innate frugality. Most consumers, when faced with the choice of bringing the bottle or can back to the store to get their nickel back, did so.

Aside from its anniversary, the law is in the news because Sen. Lynn Bromley, D-South Portland, wants to revisit the fate of an estimated $1.2 million in annual deposits that are not redeemed. The law currently sends deposit money for those containers not redeemed – the ones that broke, ended up in the trash or were lost – to the state. But an exception to that law allows beverages distributors to lay claim to a portion, $1.2 million, when distributors mingle their products. Sen. Bromley wants that money to go back to consumers.

Whether those changes are made, it seems the law is prime for expansion. Last year, Sen. Ted Koffman, D-Bar Harbor, tried unsuccessfully to pass a law that would have charged a fee for plastic grocery bags. The concept is not far removed from the bottle bill idea.

The motivation for the bottle bill for lawmakers in the 1970s was to reduce litter and slow the stream of waste bound for landfills. Litter rates dropped dramatically. And the law introduced, in a very tangible way, the notion of recycling a commodity that was previously seen as trash. Other states replicated the law, and Maine expanded it to include liquor, juice and water containers. The impact of the law became even more profound when the state faced a solid waste crisis in the late 1980s and many landfills were closed.

The law works because it’s a kind of carrot-and-stick approach; the carrot is knowing you are doing the right thing by recycling the container while also getting back your nickels and dimes, and the stick is losing that money by not returning the container.

Just as the perceived value of the bottle bill grew when the state faced a solid waste crisis, perhaps a new carrot-and-stick initiative tied to products whose manufacture uses lots of petroleum – like plastic bags – would appeal to that same Maine frugality.