‘Unlikely bedfellows' push national bottle bill

Supporters of a national bottle bill see this as a "strange bedfellows" moment for their cause, with opportunities to build alliances between businesses desperate for more recycled feedstocks and environmentalists who see recycling as a tool to fight climate change.

That sentiment was on display at a Feb. 23 webinar, where representatives of plastics, glass and metal packaging and recycling industries joined environmental groups in praising deposit return systems as an effective tool to double U.S. bottle recycling rates.

"We want to build an army to push for the national bottle bill, which will be introduced soon," said Heidi Sanborn, director of the National Stewardship Action Council, which organized the webinar.

Her group is planning a March 31 lobbying day in Washington for a national bottle bill.

A parade of industry representatives — the Association of Plastic Recyclers (APR), the Glass Packaging Institute, the Can Manufacturers Institute, machinery supplier Atlantic Packaging and bottled water maker Blue Triton — said they'd welcome more bottle bills, which put a refundable deposit, typically a nickel or dime, on beverage containers to incentivize recycling.

But it wasn't clear if all the groups would necessarily back the March 31 Washington lobbying day.

One environmental group among the dozen organizations that spoke, for example, said privately it wanted to see specifics around any national legislation before committing.

But sentiment was strong among the participants that governments should take a serious look at bottle bills, which passed in a wave in states in the 1970s and 1980s but have proven much more politically problematic since then.

"We are in strong support of state and national bottle bills," said Kate Bailey, APR policy director. "Our biggest challenge right now is a lack of supply. We cannot get enough PET water bottles and soda bottles to recycle.

"Our members have the capacity, the actual infrastructure right now to recycle 50 percent more bottles than we collect," she said, adding that plastic recyclers in APR expect demand to triple in coming years because of recycled-content commitments from companies.

The head of Atlantic Packaging, a $1 billion supplier of equipment to the plastic and paper industries, said the topic was personal for him.

"I'm an avid outdoor person and over my life I've watched the proliferation of plastic pollution and litter get worse and worse and worse," said CEO Wes Carter. "There was just a moment for me where I realized I was part of a supply chain that was creating these problems."

He said Atlantic Packaging helped start the New Earth Project, a collaboration of outdoor enthusiasts and packaging companies to tackle plastic and litter pollution.

"I have felt like for a long time our industry, the packaging industry, in connection with the consumer products industry and the retail industry, they basically had an intentional blind spot where we were not acknowledging the impact we were having," Carter said.

From a business standpoint, he said bottle bills create cleaner streams of recycled feedstock to be made into new products, a point echoed by other plastics, glass and metals industry representatives on the webinar.

Several speakers said bottle bills drive container recycling, with the 10 states that have them accounting for 27 percent of the U.S. population but recycling about half of the country's plastic and glass bottles and aluminum cans.

"The majority of containers, about 50 percent, are collected from the 10 bottle bill states," Sanborn said. "A national collection infrastructure is needed. It's very weak now."

NSAC data indicated that states with 10-cent deposits have the highest recycling rates, with Michigan recycling 89 percent of its containers and Oregon 86 percent.

A nickel refund, by contrast, produced lower recycling rates: 65 percent in New York state and 44 percent in Connecticut.

That's still much higher than states without container deposits.

One 2019 analysis by longtime plastics recycling expert David Cornell said nonbottle bill states typically recycle about 20 percent of PET containers.

He argued the plastics industry would have a hard time getting enough recycled materials to meet public commitments for recycled-content bottles, without more deposit systems.

As well, advocates point to litter benefits.

Sanborn said a detailed 2020 study from the Keep America Beautiful organization found that bottle bill states have 50 percent less litter on land and 30 percent less litter in water. Containers make up 40-60 percent of U.S. litter, she said.

"[A bottle bill] builds collection infrastructure and it doesn't use public money; it's not a socialized taxpayer, ratepayer-funded thing," she said. "It's using the private sector."

Another environmental group, the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group, sees opportunities to "turn the corner" in passing bottle bills.

"People are making the connection between waste and climate," said Executive Director Janet Domenitz. "That's going to move the needle."

Domenitz said the public sees more litter from containers that don't have deposits attached to them, and she said the industries that have worked against bottle bills "keep making promises that are absolutely not kept" about other ways to increase container recycling.

"That's why I think we're about to turn the corner," she said.

The Feb. 23 meeting did not get into details of legislative strategy, but Sanborn said the group will start its lobbying in the U.S. Senate.

And she acknowledged that key industry groups not on the call would need to be considered.

The National Retail Federation wants any return-to-store provisions in bottle bills to be optional and wants to be compensated for staff time and space if stores become bottle redemption centers, Sanborn said, reading from an email from Scot Case, NRF's vice president of corporate social responsibility and sustainability.

Sanborn said any plan should consider the financial impact of a national bottle bill on the waste management industry that collects curbside recycling and operates local processing centers. Waste haulers worry about bottle bills pulling valuable materials out of the curbside system.

"They have to be compensated; they're a business," she said.

Sanborn pointed to last year's complex negotiations around extended producer responsibility legislation in California with Senate Bill 54 as evidence that legislation could accommodate different interests.

The packaging industry groups on the webinar said they were interested in bottle bills.

Scott DeFife, president of the Glass Packaging Institute, said bottle bill states produce a much cleaner stream of recycled feedstock and have twice the glass container recycling rates of nonbottle states.

In an email interview after the webinar, he said GPI is open to being part of the lobbying day.

"I think a national bill will be difficult but not impossible," DeFife said. "If the federal bill comes together, it creates dialogue around the topic, which only serves to enhance the discussion of improving the overall system and could lead to a reconsideration of [deposit return systems] in the states."

As well, the Can Manufacturers Institute said bottle bills are a key to its goal of increasing the aluminum can recycling rate from 45 percent in 2020 to 70 percent in 2030 and 90 percent by 2050.

"We're very clear in our road map that while there's a variety of pillars of action to make progress toward those targets, we're not going to get there unless we have well-designed deposit return systems," said Scott Breen, CMI's vice president of sustainability.

Some plastics groups have taken positions in favor of container deposits.

The National Association for PET Container Resources, which represents PET bottle makers, was not on the webinar but issued a joint statement with CMI and GPI in 2021 in support of bottle bills.

The Plastics Industry Association told a Senate hearing in December it was open to a "well-crafted" bottle bills.

While the federal lobbying campaign is in early stages, Sanborn said the coalition is planning some new messaging.

It wants to call the legislation "recycling refund" bills, rather than bottle bills or container deposits, because it polls better, she said.

"Recycling refunds, that's what polls the best," Sanborn said. "Bottle bills are what people used to call it. But if we call it recycling refunds, we're going to get a lot better traction with a broader audience."

Breen said that term came from CMI polling and is well received by voters across the political spectrum. CMI is part of Recycling Refunds Work coalition.

"That was a finding in a voter survey we commissioned," Breen said. "It also found that 81 percent of U.S. voters say, 'I support recycling refunds.' That number was above 70 percent for Democrats, Republicans and independents.

"That's what I think makes this issue so special," Breen said. "Whether you care about national security, whether you care about supply chains, whether you care about climate change, this issue has something for you and it has demonstrated results in those areas. It's not a theoretical policy."

A national bottle bill is part of the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act in Congress, but advocates expect stand-alone legislation to be introduced soon.

Sanborn sees a coalition mixing business and environmental groups as a political plus, when they start working in the U.S. Senate.

"You get unlikely bedfellows in the same bed working toward the same thing," she said. "When legislators see industry and advocates and recyclers and everybody showing up together, they are so excited because they know the fight for them will be a lot lighter."