It's been nearly four decades since any state has adopted a "bottle bill," requiring consumers to pay a deposit on targeted beverage containers they purchase (typically soda and beer, and more recently, some states have added bottled water and other drinks). In fact, New York State was one of the last three states to adopt such a measure when they passed the current version in 1982.
Now, 41 years later, some advocates are calling for expanding New York's bottle bill (S.237) and increasing the deposit amount. While the bill is promoted for its environmental benefits, it is also a hidden tax on the state's bottlers, distributors, and consumers. Additionally, each year, the state keeps more than $120 million in unclaimed deposits to spend on land purchases, solid waste management projects, and other measures. An expanded bottle bill and increased deposit are expected to generate millions more to support state spending.
Specifically, this new legislation would, by 2024, expand the bottle bill to wine, liquor, distilled spirit coolers, and cider, and by 2025 further expand the program to include noncarbonated soft drinks, some fruit and vegetable juices, coffee and tea, and carbonated fruit drinks. The bill also proposes to double the deposit from 5 to 10 cents.
The bill would impose new costs and compliance burdens on thousands of additional outlets, requiring liquor stores and other retailers to dedicate staff and space for redemption services. Many of these stores are ill-equipped to meet these new costs and face practical challenges, including space limitations for new equipment and storage. These costs would be partially offset by an increase in the container handling fee paid by the deposit initiator to the redeemer from 3.5 to 6 cents. The bill would also impose a minimum recycled content requirement on beverage containers, mandating that all glass and aluminum containers have 35% post-consumer recycled content by 2036, imposing a 25% rate on PET bottles by 2029, and 30% for all plastics by 2031.
The need for an expanded bottle bill is unclear, given that New York State currently has broad statutory mandates for recycling, including a statewide mandate for curbside collection of materials for which secondary markets exist. Likewise, recycling is a part of the mandated state and local solid waste management planning. Ironically, municipal recycling systems are already collecting the containers that would get swept into the bottle bill under S.237
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Moreover, while advocates are calling for more packaging to be included in the bottle bill, they are also pushing passage of "expanded producer responsibility" laws that replace much of the state's existing recycling laws and shift the responsibility and the costs of municipal recycling onto businesses that produce and market that material. Governor Hochul has included an EPR proposal in her Executive Budget, but the legislature will likely make this a post-budget issue.
The result of these proposals is that businesses would end up financing two separate systems addressing the same issue of diverting packaging materials from disposal and back into productive reuse, adding costs to businesses and consumers alike.
The Business Council of New York State has a memo in opposition to the "bigger, better bottle bill" and an in-depth assessment of pending producer responsibility legislation on its website.