UPDATED: Sierra Club slams proposed bottle bill replacement
A report released by the Sierra Club on Monday said a proposal to replace the commonwealth’s existing bottle redemption law with a one-cent fee would saddle municipalities with extra costs and result in thousands of lost jobs.
The environmental group said the bill proposed with Sen. Michael Moore, D-Millbury, would put 1,600 people out of work, slash the recycling rate on beverage containers from 80 to 23 percent and cost municipalities $76 million to $121 million to set up and service public litter receptacles. That includes up to $3.4 million in new collection costs for Worcester alone, the Sierra Club said.
“This bill is nothing more than a massive bait-and-switch scheme,” Phil Sego of the Massachusetts Sierra Club said in a statement. “The bottle bill’s opponents are trying to make this sound like cheaper and easier recycling when it’s neither.”
The Sierra Group claims the bill would force the closure plants that recycle high quality bottle-bill materials. That includes the Verallia/Saint Gobain recycling plant in Milford, which employs 250, and Strategic Material’s plant in Franklin, which employs 50.
The current 5-cent deposit law has applied only to beer and carbonated beverages since it took effect in 1983, and environmental groups have pushed to expand the bill to juice, flavored water and other non-carbonated beverages. Chris Flynn, president of the Massachusetts Food Association, said such a move would cost businesses $58 million annually while increasing the state’s recycling rate by just one-eighth of one percent.
Moore and Rep. John Binienda, D-Worcester, have backed a bill to phase out the existing law and replace it with a one-cent fee on containers to support recycling programs. Moore’s bill in currently in front of the legislature’s committee on telecommunications, utilities and energy.
“The proposed act…is similar to legislation adopted in Delaware in 2010, leading to new investment in recycling programs and elimination of container deposits,” Flynn said in a statement. “And their recycling rate is growing like no other state in the country.”
Updated at 4:20 p.m. with comments from the Massachusetts Food Association
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