Bottle Bill Battle

Crain's In$ider is reporting today on the effort by the Food Industry Alliance to derail the "Bigger, Better Bottle Bill." The FIA, which represents the state's food retailers is trying to totally eliminate all container deposits in exchange for expanded support for an enlarged curbside recycling program, "by adding valuable aluminum and plastic to the waste stream."

Crain's, however, is less than sanguine about the chances for this measure to pass since the investigation of Senator Bruno will leave the majority leader weakened and unable to fight the governor and the assembly on this issue. We agree and would add to this the fact that total repeal of the bottle bill is a non-starter.

That's why we have been arguing for a different kind of bottle bill structure, one that allows for the containers to be taken out of the stores and returned to state licensed redemption centers. Otherwise the redemption-and regulatory-burden will fall on food stores (and not the box stores and drug outlets that refuse to redeem with impunity).