On Saturday, since the candidate for whom I had been volunteering (Berwick) lost the primary, I decided that I would devote some of my new free time to the ballot initiatives. I signed up to volunteer for Yes on 2, Yes on 3, and Yes on 4.
Coincidentally, that afternoon, the Massachusetts “Information for Voters” guide from Secretary Galvin came in the mail. I’m new to Massachusetts (I’ve lived here just over a year), so I found it particularly interesting to get such a guide. (I don’t remember ever getting one in Pennsylvania—not that we ever had as compelling ballot initiatives in recent years, at least to my memory).
The booklet provides a summary of each of the four ballot questions, tells you what a yes or no vote will mean, provides space for arguments submitted by both sides,and then gives the full text of the proposed law.
The name of the group campaigning against Question 2 caught my eye: “Comprehensive Recycling Works.” By the name, it sounds like either a recycling advocacy group (“works” as a verb) or a recycling company (“works” as a noun). “Comprehensive Recycling Works” criticized the proposal for “expanding an outdated, ineffective, and inconvenient system” and called for “modern recycling technology” that would enable Massachusetts to become a “recycling leader.”
After reading this, I thought to myself, “I wonder who is behind Comprehensive Recycling Works.” So I googled the address (it was given), and lo and behold, the first thing to show up was the website for the Massachusetts Food Association, that is, the supermarket lobby. Or, to use their own words, a trade association of “retailers (from the large chain supermarkets to the corner store operator), food brokers, manufacturers and wholesalers.” Same building, same suite. How kind of them to provide space for this completely-not-connected-in-any-way-group.
Yvonne Abraham had a great piece in the Globe yesterday about the deceptive war being waged by the No on 2 campaign:
A few inconvenient facts get in their way, however. In Massachusetts, we buy 3.5 billion drinks in on-the-go containers each year. Only a third of those get recycled. The rest — enough to fill Fenway Park — are tossed in the trash, ending up in landfills, where they last close to forever, and cost cities and towns more than $7 million a year. The vast majority of those are containers that carry no 5-cent deposit, holding sports drinks, water, and other drinks that weren’t around back when the original bottle bill passed more than 30 years ago. We recycle 79 percent of containers that carry deposits. And only 23 percent of those that don’t. Deposits clearly work.
But well-funded opponents argue deposits are an old idea, as if this makes them inherently bad. They say we should do more curbside recycling, rather than encouraging people to bring in empties to collect their deposits. Why can’t we do both? They say expanding the bill will cost $60 million, though their website doesn’t make it clear who’ll be paying this sum: Consumers will be able to get their deposits back. The beverage companies claim to be worried about consumers, to whom, they say, they’ll have to pass along any extra costs. While it’s truly touching that the same guys who have no problem charging a buck for the exact same water you can get from your faucet for pennies are stricken with concern for their customers’ well-being, reality is not on their side.
The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection surveyed drink prices in several New England states and found no difference between states with expanded bottle deposit laws and those without. The same report found claims by retailers that expanding the bill would deluge them with bottles they couldn’t handle are similarly iffy: Big supermarkets (stores under 3,000 feet would not have to take empties) are capable of accepting many more bottles than they currently do.
As Abraham points out elsewhere, the bottle bill’s opponents have already devoted $5.4 million to their fight against Question 2 and will probably spend another $5 million by November. Don’t drink their Kool-Aid.
I learned a lot reading your comments. Thanks! And welcome to Massachusetts. It’s good to have your energy and insight on our team.
…I have to say: DITTO!
That does not diminish the excellence of it as an idea. I remember before the Bottle Bill was implemented, and the endless stretches of bottle litter that disfigured our roadsides. That’s now a thing of the past, thanks to the Bottle Bill.
I also remember earlier bottle deposits, when all the soda bottles were glass, and it made economic sense for bottlers to wash and reuse them. Back then, bottles up to 12 ounces had a two-cent deposit, and larger bottles had a nickle deposit. It was worth a kid’s while to ride around on his bike, filling the baskets with discarded bottles. Then bottlers switched to steel cans and plastic bottles, and deposits were suddenly limited to bar-bottles for beer. Kids stopped picking up after the litterbugs, and the results were ugly.
I’m for expanding the deposit system.
…my wife and I discusses the bottle bill. She thought it was overkill because we already have deposits on beer & soda and “most people recycle their plastic bottles”. So, I asked her to watch the roadside for discarded water bottles as I peddled on. Within in two mile stretch of road, from Franklin to Norfolk, she counted twelve bottles.
Why isn’t it by 2014 just as easy to recycle as to throw something away? Curbside recycling should be universal. Public parks with trash cans should have recycling cans right next to the trash cans. Eat-in venues in which customers are expected to bus their own tables should be required to have recycling recepticles next to ones for trash. The 79%-23% stat is surprising to be honest. Since I grew up with curbside recycling my first reaction was that the bottle bill had outlived its usefulness. Now I live in a complex with a trash dumpster without one for recycling, something else which should be required by law. Honestly I doubt this law will change my own habits and induce me to take my bottles back to the store.
Also, how is the stat cited in the commercial that 90% of containers are already recycled derived? Obviously, it’s a far cry from 1/3.
it’s the willingness to participate and do it. My suburban community has had curbside pick up for years, and I still see more homes that don’t bother, than do. I think we need active campaigns in the towns to encourage recycling, not just putting a flyer in with tax bills. I’ve recycled for some 30 years, including voluntarily taking recyclables to a transfer station to do it.
What do we hope to accomplish with the bottle bill? Do we want to recycle raw materials that can be repurposed? Do we want to reduce solids dumped into expensive landfills? Or, do we want our streets cleaned of all those single use bottles now not covered by the law? I walk miles in my neighborhood and can attest to the mess caused by lazy people who can’t be bothered to hold their empties until they can reach a proper receptacle. The streets are littered with water bottles and juice bottles especially. I might be willing to consider eliminating the deposit on 2 liter bottles and instead focus on all single use bottles, but that only addresses the litter aspect and not the reuse of raw materials. Thoughts?.
…they certainly won’t shlep bottles to the store for a five cent refund. The deposit was more significant (equivalent to 12 cents in today’s dollars) when it was enacted as a litter control measure.
Do you honestly think someone buying a single serving bottle is going to walk around with the thing until they find a store where they can redeem the container for a nickel? Of course not. Those bottles and cans end up in the trash, and will continue to end up in the trash until we deploy recycling barrels alongside trash bins and mandate their use.
The problem has changed, and the solution is different. We need easy and mandatory recycling, similar to the system in Japan. That
a deposit on single serve bottle will encourage someone to hang onto it until they reach a receptacle. OTOH, it might encourage someone else to collect it for the deposit as happens now with beer and soda containers. In that regard, it’s more a litter solution, but it has worked for the existing bottle law, and likely would work with one expanded to allow for the change in bottling over the years.
I buy my water in MA and return the bottles in ME.
I thought bottles had to be labelled as having been sold in a deposit state in order to be redeemed.
You can even buy bottles in NH and collect the deposit in MA, even though you didn’t pay it. That’s a loophole I’m kind of surprised that ME, MA, and VT haven’t done something to close.
$100 fine per instance in MA.
Here’s a article about people going to trial in ME:
http://consumerist.com/2011/08/19/maine-shopkeepers-on-trial-for-redeeming-deposits-for-bottles-from-new-hampshire/
It helps to start charging for trash and keeping recycling free. This has been the case in my first month in Aurora IL. Sadly, for all their hype as “green mayors” Rahm and Daley never passed a bill forcing Streets and Sanitation to collect from high rises. I’ve recycled a lot more in my one month in Aurora than I did in 8 years in Chicago since all my dorms and apartments were over the pickup threshold (a mere two floors!)
It’s just another way to nickel and dime folks and people aren’t going to be able to eliminate it altogther.
Its a limit of two trash tickets a week, there are also strict rules about mowing and watering the lawn-I respect all of them since it conserves water and reduces trash. Nobody is saying eliminate it-just really think about the kind of waste you use. Add an incentive for free composting equipment and lessons on top of the free recycling and you got a formula.
…and then pay for excess I might be OK with that. I just really couldn’t pay for one more thing right now. I don’t understand why people can’t or won’t simply recycle that which is recyclable when the opportunity to do so is handed to you on a platter as with curbside recycling. The choice part is easy already anyway.
For joe six pack, you gotta tax it or fine to give a regulation teeth. Seatbelts needed to be made mandatory, so did helmets in major sports leagues, even bullet proof vests in police departments. Cigarette use experienced it’s most significant decline, not after the 1964 findings of the AMA that it caused cancer, but after the 1990s war on Big Tobacco, the banning of ads, and taxing the hell out of it. To this day most friends and relatives quit because of the taxes, not for their health.
Charge for trash, make recycling free, and don’t be surprised if people recycle a whole lot more.
…I would rather incentivize rather than penalize. I’m OK with taxing cigarettes because you don’t have to smoke at all, but we are all going to have some trash and most of us have to do some driving. I just don’t consider it progressive to be nickel and diming people for things that are just part of life.
The solution to relief on regressive taxes is to overhaul the main revenue streams so that THEY are fair (THEY ARE NOT). Trying to get at Less Regressivity thru the “nickel dime” levies that have clear impact and importance on the environment/climate (reduce fossil fuels, reduce pollution) — that’s nickel-and-dime thinking.
If the Legislature would simply raise the income tax (reverse Romney era tax cuts), increase the deduction — as is proposed in “AN ACT TO INVEST IN OUR COMMUNITIES” and similar legislation in years past, and years future, I hope — that would go MUCH farther in actually reducing the regressivity of our taxes.
is YOUR legislator an historic sponsor of “An Act to Invest in Our Communities”? Did YOUR legislator push for raising the income tax/increasing the exemption in lieu of the flawed Transportation Bill in 2013 (probably not)?
Have YOU told your legislator how frustrated you are with their nickel-and-dime thinking on revenue, which only ends up short-shrifting the environment/climate and continues to exacerbate regressive taxes on the poor?
There IS a solution to the problems you are talking about.
step 1: Raise the income tax and increase the personal exemption (Act to Invest, or similar)
step 2: Change the state constitution to establish a true graduated income tax.
If we really care about nickel-and-diming the poor to death, then we should be pushing our Party, our legislators, our Candidates to FIX our fucked up tax system and be bold about educating talking about it, to bring the citizens/voters along.
We have a lot of reasons to be disgusted with our candidates and institutional power centers in the Party and legislature for not making this a CENTRAL cornerstone of a full-throated call for true economic justice.
The silence is deafening and disappointing.
….though I get the distinct impression you’re not a big fan of “in the meantime” thinking, don’t charge for one more thing. I was answering the specific suggestion, not trying to overhaul public policy in a single comment.
…changes which include paying for the actual cost of the damage we exact on the environment, 50 years from now, people are going to ask, WTF were you idiots thinking?
The way that Worcester does this is that the city collection will only take trash that is in special stamped yellow trash bags, which go for about $1.50 for something the size of a big green “Hefty” trash bag, and can take 2-3 regular white “kitchen” bags. Collection from the recycling bins is free.
Over the 12 years that we have lived here, we have gone from approximately 4-5 yellow bags a week, plus a partially filled “milk crate” recycle bin, to 1-2 yellow bags per month, and a mostly-filled 50-gallon bin of recycling materials every week.
If we have a big party and produce a lot of trash one week, well then we buy extra bags. Trash disposal isn’t free and shouldn’t be treated as such.
THAT is how you get recycling going. Worcester has done it successfully, even in urban neighborhoods where this kind of thing is hard to pull off.
that the City provides the recycling bins for free, as well as barrell composters which keep the food out of the trash, and make it possible to hold the trash for a week or two until there is enough to warrant the use of a yellow bag.
It has never been a particularly big cost, but the whole program gives everyone the incentive to use the very nice recycling system that is right there for their use
Even more eco-friendly than its Plan E compatriots over in Cambridge. Good ideas folks, let’s keep sharing.
This year we are eliminating the “dump” (RTS) sticker fee, but all trash taken to the RTS has to be in special yellow town trash bags which you can buy at local retail outlets. So, you “pay per throw” — each bag you lob into the dumpsters costs you. The recycling, however, is free to toss. The incentive, then, is to make sure you’re pulling as much as you can out of the Yellow Bags to put into recycling and to minimize how much trash you are simply throwing out because you pay each time you throw a bag.
While I HATE that we don’t have curbside pickup, if you’re gonna have a town dump/RTS, I like the pay-per-throw for its simplicity and pay-for-only-what-you-use.
There’s no reason not to expand the bottle bill except for corporate resistance to it. We have a coca-cola bottling plant in Needham and they have spent many years trying to convince the town elders how silly an expanded bottle bill would be. Meanwhile, they’re putting town water into Dasani bottles, selling it to suckers who then leave them on the streets. (Everyone needs to watch Colbert’s 2008 whole episode on bottled water. “That one’s already had a mouth on it“)
The bottle bill works. I was a kid when it first passed, and I have seen a marked difference in litter. People haven’t stopped drinking sodas — that’s NOT why you don’t see them on the side of the road. It’s because of the bottle bill.
If people are going to buy a public vital resource in a plastic bottle, the whole manufacturing/production cycle of which wastes more energy and resources, then the very least we should expect is that they put down a $.05 deposit on the bottle.
Sheesh.
Meanwhile the Plastic Island in the middle of the ocean is growing, not abating.
I like to camp, fish, and hike. When I was young, before the bottle bill, the most prevalent litter I encountered in the woods, on the banks of streams and lakes, and alongside trails was beer bottles and nips.
Now, in Massachusetts, the “litterscape” is dominated by empty bottled water containers. The 79/23 ratio demonstrates that the bottle bill WORKS. Perhaps it won’t change your habits, but the results are clear nevertheless.
It just demonstrates that the drinking choices of litterbugs have changed from soda to water.
Unless you have some explanation of why litterbug preferences have changed, or some citation that shows they have, I’m going to continue thinking that someone’s picking up the deposit bottles and returning them, even when it’s not the litterbugs.
The 90% number says “90% of residents have access to a recycling program”.
At least I think that’s what it said – it was pretty quick. If so, they’re talking from both sides of their mouth. First, increased recycling would be better than a deposit. Second, we don’t need a deposit because we have such good recycling availability!
I just saw the anti-ad at the dentist! It left a sour taste in my mouth. Get it? Or maybe that was the fluoride.
How many COMMUNITIES of the 351 have any recycling? Even just a table for glass at the dump? OF them, how many have residential pickup?
And as PAYT becomes the new orange in rural communities, how many just call up the local trash hauler and ship the whole thing is a (literally) mixed bag to the incinerator?
Calling up the local trash hauler costs more than PAYT. I was quite a skeptic of this when first subjected to it, but experience has shown that it works, and well.
Having to confront your trash and recycling is a good thing. I actually do NOT enjoy going to the RTS. I make my husband do it. He enjoys it. It’s a community thing. Everyone goes. Well, not everyone. But if you’re a REAL townie, not some poseur, you go to the “dump”. It’s def less expensive than private curbside pick-up.
I’d be happy to have town pick-up with PAYT bags. But alas, I’m not a real townie.
I was curious as to porcupine’s objection.
I’m a little jealous of your dump, because all of our friends who get to do that get the coolest stuff at the leave/take area.
I think my husband actually doesn’t want me going to dump because he thinks I’ll scour the take/leave shed and come home with more stuff. BUT IT’S RECYCLING/REDUCING/REUSING, HONEY!!
They’re very particular about what they’ll allow you to “leave”.
I saw the ad again since I first asked and realized I misremembered.
…is to make the recycling industry self-sustaining, even profitable, greater volume is needed. And the last thing we should ever consider is further diverting materials from the curbside recycling stream – clearly the most efficient means for the vast majority of citizens to participate. It’s been close to two decades since many Massachusetts communities implemented curbside recycling, which at the time was touted as a money-making venture which would partly subsidize the costs of rubbish collection. Well, that’s never panned out, and one big reason is because Massachusetts clings to the notion that requiring consumers to stockpile their empty bottles and cans in order to later redeem them is sound policy. And just because the current program provides state government with a lucrative revenue stream from non-redeemed containers doesn’t make it sound policy. Rather than advocating for expansion, a far-reaching executive would work to abolish (or greatly restrict) the existing container law with the aim of forcing all recyclables, especially containers, through curbside programs – which is not only vastly more efficient, but the best way to enhance critical volume and thus develop enduring markets for recycled materials.
Bottle deposits garner a 79% recycling rate, so instead of expanding deposits, we should destroy them?
Most of the places where water bottles and similar refuse accumulates don’t have curbsides, never mind receptacles.
A better “far-reaching” alternative is to eliminate bottled water altogether. The water that comes out of the tap in virtually EVERY Massachusetts community that offers curbside refuse collection is indistinguishable from the water sold in bottles. People who want small containers of water can buy their own, fill it at their tap, and the problem is solved.
The general idea, in my view, is to rid our landscape of refuse created by producing wasteful and unnecessary consumables and packaging. I, frankly, don’t care whether the “recycling industry” is self-sustaining — never mind profitable.
…I guess points out differing assumptions. Maybe it’s the Boy Scout in me, but I adhere to the idea that you “take only pictures, leave only footprints”. It’s too bad that people still litter. In my book in the absence of appropriate disposal methods, whether trash or recycling, if you take something into the wilderness you had better darn well bring it out too.
I, too, was a scout (that’s where I learned to camp and canoe). I, too, have always practiced bringing out what brought in, to the best of my ability. In the 1960s, our community service projects (for various merit badges) were often litter cleanup of wilderness areas.
Sadly, too many people do not share these values. They do end up tossing their water bottles, and they no longer do the same with their beer bottles.
The deposit law WORKS, and should be extended as per the ballot question because it works.
Communities that get MWRA water have uniformly high-quality water. Other communities are variable, and some have really bad-tasting water. I live in one of those. I used to buy gallons of water at Market Basket and lug them upstairs. Then I smartened up and put in an under-the-sink filtration unit. It produces great-tasting water, and saves me a lot of money and effort. Filter cartridges cost around $10 and last for months. When the water starts to taste funky, it’s time to spend a couple of minutes changing the filter. I don’t buy smaller bottles of water, either. When I’m going out, I have stainless steel bottles I can fill with filtered water. No plastic any more.
You should let the water run for a minute to flush the bacteria before drinking it. Catch the flush water in a container and use it to water house plants if you’re concerned about wasting water.
in my experience. Lots of people, usually myself included, don’t bother with redeeming. I generally put containers, with or without deposit, in my curbside barrel.
Then the little old recycling ladies come around, take them from my barrel, fill big bags with those containers, and turn them in for the deposits. The same people go around picking up littered bottles and/or pulling them out of trash barrels. But only if there’s a deposit to be had. They see a water or juice bottle and there’s no nickel associated, they leave it on the ground or in the trash barrel.
This usually involves ransacking the recycling bins, which causes a lot of recycling material to wind up in the street as litter rather than in a recycling bin or truck. If everything is returnable, then these guys will simply dump the bin, pick out the returnables, and leave everything else to the winds.
While the existing deposit program seems to work from the existence of litter perspective, it seems pretty clear that the costs of having and maintaining bottle return machines, the space in which to store those machines, and the storage of all of the returned containers is borne entirely by the retailer. Meanwhile, the deposits that aren’t redeemed are kept by the state. It doesn’t seem to be particularly fair to simply impose all of these costs on retailers, while simultaneously proclaiming what an efficient and inexpensive program we have here.
At least the ones who’ve figured out how do. Each five-cent return generates two cents for the retailer who refunds the deposit. If the retailer is organized in their handling of returns, they make a profit. That’s probably why Market Basket has not joined Stop & Shop, Roche Bros.and some other grocers in opposing the ballot question – MB expects to make more money if the new law is passed.
or they were busy with other stuff lately
Get your local PD after the messy scavengers. If they realize that making a mess is earning them conversations with the cops, they’ll stop doing it.
The sifters can thank you later for saving them the trouble.
It ain’t that hard.
I could agree with all or parts of everyone’s story.
1. I’ve never turned in an MA bottle for deposit (when I lived in MI in the 70’s though, they had .10 deposit and that was a lot at the time and I returned all).
2. I noticed litter was significantly reduced in MA in the 80’s with the law.
3. I shop in NH at times so no deposit. Lots of people do this.
4. I recycle 100% of my bottles & cans curbside.
5. I rarely drink bottled water.
So I’m not sure what my vote accomplishes. Reduce litter? Costs grocers? Encourages people to go through recycling bins? It’s going to cost me more because the kids get Gatorade and stuff like that, but nothing significant.
Will do all three of those things (reduces litter, costs grocers, and encourages people to go through recycling bins). It also reduces costs to your town because cities and towns pay a tipping fee for recyclables, so the more that are redeemed at the grocer, the less your town pays. It also reduces the amount of trash that cities and towns have to throw away from public litter barrels, because more deposit bottles will be scooped out or otherwise redeemed.
Expanding the bottle bill reduces costs faced by city and town government. It reduces litter, decreases the quantity of landfilled trash, and increases the amount of recycling. The deposit law is a remarkably effective low cost tool.
It is low cost because it imposes all of the costs on other people: most significantly retailers, who are by the way not in the waste-disposal business, but also on you, who will have to go back to the days of four different garbage cans, washing everything out, sort them, store them, and then shlep them all to the six different locations required to actually return things– thus doubling the length of the usual weekend grocery run.
And, having outsourced all of the costs, the government keeps the unredeemed deposits. What’s not to like?
It would also be an efficient and effective way for my mortgage to get paid if you would just give me all of your money.
Grocery stores take redeemables now, except for store brands of their competitors. I hope and assume that if this law passes that will remain the case.
I do not believe that you buy beverages at six different stores, none of which will accept bottles from any of the others. Are these all store brands? You buy six different store brands of drinks? No way.
Also, as I pointed out above, retailers can and do make money redeeming deposits. If there are costs, they are imposed on inefficient redeemers and on the people who buy crap in plastic and steel containers – and those latter are exactly the people who should be paying the costs.
I buy beer and a case or two of soda. Beer comes from the package store of course, and is returned there. One stop.
Soda gets returned at the grocery store, but: oops! We bought Cranberry Fresca at Stop & Shop but now we are at Big Y, and Big Y doesn’t take Cranberry Fresca, or Diet Barq’s for that matter. Shaws takes Coke products, but not Diet Dr. Pepper if it is one of “new” varieties, like vanilla. Two stops. But, oops! We had a get together and someone brought some yummy Hansen’s soda for the kids, but you can only take that to Trader Joe (or some special ginger ale from Whole Paycheck). Three stops. Oh, crap, someone is ahead of me with 676 cans. Now the machine is full and we must call a manager.
By this point I usually just dump the leftover cans in the nearest trash can, because it isn’t worth it. Are they recycled? Who knows? Maybe the guy with 6 grocery carts of cans throws them in and brings them to the next stop.
Now we are going to pile on to that with: Oops, we bought that container of OJ at Honey Farms when we were running low, and those waters the kids brought to practice came from the CVS, and gee we have been out for two hours and don’t have any groceries yet– and the redemption value probably doesn’t pay for the gas we just burned.
That just means that I will give up and put everything in our big recycle bin, which in turn means that someone will come before the truck, dump the bin onto the sidewalk, take the returnables, and leave everything else to be blown into the woods down the street.
Yay.
and all your grocery money buying carbonated sugar drinks for your children, it’s possible that there are some lessons to be learned from the difficulties you are having with returnable bottles.
* Cranberry Fresca
* Diet Barq’s root beet
* Dr. Pepper vanilla somesuch
* Hansen’s
You’re a rather remarkable edge case.
As for driving all around town to return the bottles, you don’t have to return them at once. You bring back the Hansen’s when you’re going shopping at TJs. You bring back the CVS water bottles when you’re going shopping at CVS. Etc. It isn’t hard or complicated.
As for your weekly bottlers dumping your trash, that problem exists now. This doesn’t make it worse for you — if anything, it makes it better because they’ll take more with them (leaving less on the street).
Unless it becomes a pain in the @$$, in which case I leave it out separately for the pickers. They ransack the regular recycling anyway, though, just in case.
I would like to know what the existing recycling industry has to say about this. People have been working for decades to make recycling into a self-sustaining and profitable business, because that is the ONLY way that the overall volume of trash is reduced. It has taken a large amount of effort and investment to secure both (1) a steady supply of recyclable material; and (2) reliable markets for that material. What portion of the existing stream is composed of the containers that are to be diverted into the “soda can” system? The deposit system puts the beverage manufacturer in the recycling business, not the businesses that have actually built recycling into a business from scratch in the first place. Will diverting this material away from the existing streams disrupt the recycling businesses that already exist?
These bottle bills were a great response to a “litter” crisis in the 60s and 70s, and created a way to get containers recycled when the recycling of consumer waste was something that did not otherwise exist. There really isn’t any litter crisis on the same scale now, and it sure seems to me
I’ve been putting my returnable bottles in my curbside recycle container since 1999 — and decade in Brookline and more recently in Somerville. Not ONCE has anybody but me made a mess (every now and then a wine bottle misses the big bin while I’m transferring it from inside and breaks on the sidewalk). Our trash-pickers in both Brookline and Somerville are generally ancient Asians, pushing heavily-laden shopping carts, who are meticulous and thorough.
If people are dumping your recycle bin, you should be in the face with your local chief of police, mayor/town manager, or whatever, until it stops.
The issue you are objecting to has little relevance to the bottle bill.
They’ve never encouraged us to return rather than recycle.
They did tell us to stopping recycling certain things (wax milk cartons, styrofoam meat trays) even though they have recycle symbols.
The local Y has a nifty water fountain that you can refill bottles at. It’s got a meter that shows how many plastic bottles have not been needed due to reusable bottles.
but not putting the waste in the town’s stream costs even less than recycling. Your town should be telling you that. You know, reduce, reuse, recycle. In that order.
My town (or its recycling contractor) also prohibits styrofoam, but I don’t know why. It’s styrene, right? Which is recyclable when it’s not foamed up.
Styrofoam is quite difficult to handle, as anyone whose tried to dump packing peanuts into a wastebasket lined with a plastic bag has discovered. It’s an insulator, and quickly accumulates a static charge that causes items to repel each other. The result is a collection of lightweight mutually-repelling fragments that even the slightest breeze scatters all over the place.
I don’t know if that’s a factor in its exclusion from the curbside recycling stream, but that’s why I hate getting styrofoam anything.
The biggest: it’s mostly air (98%). Since the value of material offsets the cost of collecting, handling, and processing — and since styrofoam is mostly air — there’s almost no financial upside.
Bottom line: it can be recycled, but it’s really expensive to do so. So, it’s low on the totem pole of reducing the waste stream. With single stream curbside recycling, Americans are moderately good at recycling. We need to get better, but the next step is probably composting. Getting folks to compost at their own home if they have the land/space, and having curbside compost pickup for other folks. I’m not talking yard waste (we should be doing that too, and often are) — I’m talking corn cobs and banana peels and other non-meat organics.
I would be on board with that.
I’m pretty sure my friend from Montreal also has his kitchen waste picked up and composted.