Markeshia Ricks File Photo
Bottle deposit room at Beverage Boss.
Bottle deposit machines on every corner. Breezes free of incinerated trash particles. No litter in sight.
Climate activist Louis Rosado Burch painted this idyllic picture to Dwight neighbors as the outcome if the Connecticut General Assembly passes a new version of the bottle bill.
“I personally believe it will eliminate litter from nips,” Burch said.
Burch, Connecticut program director for the Citizens Campaign for the Environment, pitched the bill at the monthly Dwight Central Management Team meeting held virtually Tuesday night.
The bill, S.B. 1037, would expand the Connecticut’s existing bottle bill, which was first passed in 1978. The bill would raise the bottle deposit fee consumers pay when they purchase a beverage from 5 cents to 10 cents. If they return the empty container, they get the deposit fee back.
The idea is to bring the deposit fee in line with other states and countries with better recycling rates.
The bill also expands this deposit fee to new containers not currently covered — including juice and tea bottles and the small liquor bottles known as nips.
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Burch: Better for environment, better for our streets.
Pharmacies like CVS and Walgreens, which are already required to accept the containers they sell, would have to install bottle deposit machines to make the process easier for consumers. The handling fee collected by grocery stores and other outlets would go up to help make the process more economically sustainable for businesses.
Burch expects a vote on the draft bottle bill within the next week. He encouraged Dwight neighbors to call their state representatives. The General Assembly’s Environment Committee has already recommended the bill, on a party-line vote.
Nora Grace-Flood Photo
Inside local redemption center warehouse.
The main opposition to the bill comes from liquor and package retailers who say they do not have enough space to store the bottles. New Haven liquor store owners have made the same argument in the past.
Tuesday was the second Dwight Central Management Team meeting in a row to focus on recycling. The team brought in the New Haven Solid Waste & Recycling Authority Executive Director Pierre Barbour in April to describe what is and isn’t working in New Haven’s recycling system. Dwight neighbors were shocked to learn that each ton of trash costs New Haven taxpayers more than each ton of recycling.
“Think about that bottle bill,” said DCMT Chair Florita Gillespie at the end of the meeting. “I think changing the fee from 5 cents to 10 cents is great thing. It will probably keep a lot of bottles in containers and off our streets.”