Groups urge Markell not to abandon 'bottle bill'

Last year, Gov. Jack Markell vetoed a bill that would have abolished Delaware’s 5-cent bottle deposit program, telling legislators the state needed to reform the 27-year-old recycling initiative rather than do away with it altogether.

In January, the governor revealed his own plan for dismantling the “bottle bill” by converting the nickel deposit into a tax, with proceeds going to fund the expansion of curbside recycling across the state.

Although Markell’s idea has the support of private waste haulers and the Delaware Solid Waste Authority, some groups say his plan to dump the bottle deposit isn’t the best way to increase recycling statewide.

The current bottle bill, passed in 1982, covers all two-quart or smaller bottles used for carbonated beverages or beer.

Critics of the governor’s plan say the bottle deposit needs to apply to more types of containers, namely noncarbonated drinks and aluminum cans.

“Sure, the recycling under the bottle deposit law needs changing and updating but it doesn’t need abolishing,” said John Weber, regional head of the Surfrider Foundation, a nonprofit environmental group. “We are in favor of bringing the deposit bill up to date, which in our mind means covering more containers.”

“Other states have updated to include noncarbonated beverages like water,” he said. “All that stuff needs to be brought into the mix, add aluminum in there and you’ll have a lot of your containers covered and we think it will work a lot better.”
Susan Collins, executive director of the Container Recycling Institute, said Delaware’s bottle bill covers only 19% of the beverage containers sold, so it’s no surprise recycling rates under the bottle bill lag below national averages.

Markell spokesman Brian Selander said the governor indicated in January he doesn’t plan to broaden the variety of containers covered by the new fee and said the curbside component will adequately provide for the recycling of different types of bottles and cans.

Under the governor’s plan, private haulers and municipalities would be given specific target recycling rates, and be subject to penalties for not meeting them.

Over time, the 5-cent tax would be lowered to 2 cents per container.

With the money they save on landfill tipping fees, plus the subsidies provided by the tax, haulers and municipalities would be able to pass the savings on to consumers in the form of lower collection and participation fees, according to the governor.

“Only 12% of bottles are actually returned, so currently 88% of those nickels do not go back to consumers or residents in any appreciable way,” Selander said.

“When you go to buy that bottle, it would be the same cost up front.”

Collins argued that replacing the bottle deposit with a fee will mean more to consumers than the governor’s office may think.

“A deposit is something somebody can get back and everybody knows that. They know that they pay their 5 cents when they buy the beverage. Then they recycle it, they do the behavior that’s incentivized and they get their deposit back,” she said. “To put a tax on that very narrow category of beverages will probably strike some residents in the state as unfair.”

Collins admits the low participation in Delaware’s bottle deposit programs is a bit of an anomaly compared to other jurisdictions with similar laws in place, but she maintains a complete replacement of the deposit program with curbside pickup is not the best way to maximize recycling.

“Only about 50% of beverage containers are generated in the home, so it’s not possible to have very high recycling rates without hitting both the residential and commercial sector,” she said. “You can’t target a sector that has only 50% of the materials and expect to get an 80% recycling rate.”

Markell and members of the legislature still are hammering out final bill, which is expected to be filed by the end month.

House Natural Resources Committee chair Rep Michael P. Mulrooney, D-Pennwood, will be the bill’s lead sponsor, along with Sen. David McBride, D-Hawk’s Nest.

Mulrooney is optimistic about the plan’s chances in the legislature, but any bill will have to overcome the opposition of the state’s powerful beverage distribution industry.

Now, any unreclaimed bottle deposit money reverts to the distributors, adding up to an estimated $3 million a year in revenue for those businesses.

But, beverage distributors have complained in the past about the encumbrances placed upon them by the bottle bill in terms of collection and recycling requirements.

Mulrooney said the distributors have yet to come around to the governor’s plan, mostly because it represents a new tax that could impact sales.

“Right now the problem is the retailers and distributors are against it. It’s a legitimate complaint; if you tax glass and plastic bottles, what’s wrong with cardboard and other things? It’s a legitimate argument,” he said.

Email Doug Denison at doug.denison@doverpost.com.