Maryland Needs a Bottle Bill
The Problem
About 5.2 billion bottles and cans are sold in Maryland annually, but only 1.2 billion are currently recycled (23%). Based on that data, in Queen Anne's County alone, an estimated 34 million beverage containers go unrecycled each year and are left in the environment–in landfills, on roadsides, in waterways–or incinerated.
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​The Solution
Beverage container deposit programs, also known as “bottle bills,” are a proven, highly effective policy for recovering used beverage containers and reducing litter. Ten states in the U.S., covering about 90 million people (about 25% of the population), have long-standing, successful, and cost-effective beverage container deposit programs that incentivize recycling and deter littering by refunding a small deposit for each container to those who return them for recycling. States with a 10-cent deposit have achieved container recycling rates of 90%.
How Will the Program Operate?
The Beverage Container Recycling Refund and Litter Reduction program would create a beverage container deposit program in Maryland with a 10- or 15-cent refundable deposit on metal, glass, and plastic beverage containers, depending on container size. The deposit is refunded to the customer when the beverage container is returned for recycling. The program would rely on reverse vending machines and other new technologies for convenient container redemption.
The program would be operated by a nonprofit Beverage Container Stewardship Organization selected by the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE), representing all producers that sell beverages in the state. MDE would provide oversight, approving stewardship plans and annual reports, and setting the programs’ convenience standards and handling fees for redemption points. An Advisory Council of stakeholders would advise MDE on plan approval, implementation, and performance.
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The program would be self-financing from fees paid by producers, revenue from the sale of raw materials, unclaimed deposits, and penalties. Ten percent of unclaimed deposits would fund a Grant Program run through Chesapeake Bay Trust to increase the reuse and recycling of beverage containers.
Support the Maryland Beverage Container Recycling Refund and Litter Reduction Program to reduce litter, prevent plastic pollution, increase recycling, and conserve resources!
What are the program's benefits?
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Reduction in beverage container litter and plastic pollution. It would capture more than 3 billion additional beverage containers annually, including 2 billion plastic bottles.
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Quadrupling of Maryland’s beverage container recycling rate. The recycling rate, currently only 23% of containers sold in the state, would increase to more than 90% with the Bottle Bill.
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Increase in high quality, food-grade recycled content for new food and beverage containers. When the targets are achieved, the program will generate an additional 11,305 tons of aluminum, 44,066 tons of PET plastic, 3,207 tons of HDPE plastic, and 140,923 tons of glass to be recycled into new containers.
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Reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. By reducing the production of new cans and bottles from virgin materials, the additional recycling from this program would eliminate 195,000 metric tons of CO2 equivalent annually, the equivalent of removing the emissions of 42,000 cars.
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Investments in refillable and reusable beverage container systems. Deposits are critical for development of refillable and reusable containers. The program will launch that transition.
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Job creation. Recycling generated by a deposit program creates five times as many jobs as landfilling or incineration.
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Savings for taxpayers and local governments. Beverage producers would finance the costs of collection and processing of the three-quarters of beverage containers currently being disposed or littered, as well as the collection and processing of some containers currently recycled curbside. The program will divert materials from costly landfills and incinerators. These disposal costs are currently borne by taxpayers and local governments.
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Additional potential local savings
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If the local government can demonstrate, looking across the whole waste system (not just recycling) that they have suffered financial losses from the program that can be attributed to the bottle bill, there would be compensation for those losses for the first three years.
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Local governments (counties and municipalities) are authorized to set up their own redemption center(s) and receive a handling fee per container redeemed.
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Counties and municipal corporations are eligible for grants under the Beverage Container Recycling Refund Grant Program, funded by up to $5 million/year paid for from unredeemed deposits. Funds from that grant program can be used to increase the reuse and recycling of beverage containers; reduce beverage container litter; and increase the availability of public water fountains and water refill stations.