Action Alert: Help Pass the Updated Bottle Bill!
This bill is supported by over 130 towns (including Carlisle) through resolutions, Sierra Club MA, LWVMA, MassPIRG, MassRecycle, Mass DEP and others. This photo plainly demonstrates why we need to update the Massachusetts Bottle Bill:
The Mass Bottle Bill website list 10 reasons to support the Bottle Bill, and has a fact sheet that counters arguments against it.
If you’d like to see and learn more about plastics in our lives, check out the Great Pacific Garbage Patch on Wikipedia and on The Daily Green. There are actually 5 of these giant, marine trash ‘dumps’ in our oceans, catching the refuse that has gone out of our sight and minds, but will never degrade, threatening marine and bird life, as well as our own species.
If you think this message is alarmist, find out more about the issue and focus your alarm on this dangerous and growing problem. Please help turn the tide of this ever expanding sea of waste.
What’s the problem?
The Bottle Bill is the state’s most successful recycling and litter prevention program. Since the Bottle Bill's inception in 1983, over 30 billion containers have been redeemed, contributing to a healthier environment, cleaner and safer communities, and a stronger economy. But to keep up with the times and consumer’s tastes, the bottle bill must be updated. An Updated Bottle Bill would expand our container deposit system to include non-carbonated beverages such as water, iced tea, juice, and sports drinks.
It would decrease litter - and increase recycling – by building on an already existing law and infrastructure. This would be at no cost to the state or municipalities; the update expands the category of containers that can be redeemed for deposits paid by consumers. Not a tax - a deposit. You get your nickel back if you take your containers back for redemption. Make no mistake, taxpayers are paying for the litter, pollution and health impacts associated with these containers; we are paying the clean-up of unnecessary trash. Do we want our dollars to go to ‘waste’ or to support town services, schools and other real needs?
An amazing 80% of beverages that are covered by the bottle bill are redeemed/recycled. But sadly, only 22% of non-deposit containers are recycled – the rest become litter, clog our storm drains, or are thrown in the trash to fill landfills or go up in toxic, incinerator smoke.
Updating our bottle bill will boost recycling, save our communities the cost associated with disposal and litter cleanup, and conserve valuable resources. These plastic bottles are made of 99% petroleum - what a sad waste to send our valuable oil to landfills where they'll sit forever.
What you can do!
Contact your State Representative and State Senator TODAY and ask them to support the Updated Bottle Bill, H3515/S1480.
Go to www.wheredoivotema.com if you're unsure about who your state legislators are.
1. Ask your legislators to commit to supporting the bill (if they haven’t already).
2. Contact leadership and ask them to move the bill. Ask house/senate leaders to move the bill to the floor for a vote! If it doesn’t move soon, the bill will die.
There are only a few weeks left in this legislative session, and the bottle bill has yet to move out of its first committee. Updates to the bottle bill have been pending for 16 years. Your call to your legislators can help move it along.
Please don’t delay - call, email, or fax them TODAY! Be sure to include your name and address.