PET industry joins push for national bottle bill in Congress

A loose coalition of environmental groups and businesses, including some in the plastics industry, are lobbying Washington to build support for a bipartisan national bottle bill.

The informal group, which includes the PET Resin Association and major PET resin makers like Indorama Ventures and DAK Americas, held a lobby day Feb. 28 with offices of 30 lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

It's an early-stage effort that's yet to produce specific legislation but its members include an "unlikely bedfellows" mix of glass, plastic and metals industry groups, along with environmentalists.

"We don't have a bill. We're not lobbying a bill; we're lobbying a concept," said Heidi Sanborn, executive director of the National Stewardship Action Council, which organized the coalition. "We're trying to get enough support and momentum to get a bipartisan bill introduced that can pass."

The PET Resin Association said it joined because it wants to see national framework bottle bill legislation to increase recycling rates, even if it means Washington is getting involved in an area traditionally handled by state governments.

"As multiple industries realize that in order to effectively recycle materials, [we realize that] an effective collection and infrastructure is needed," said Ralph Vasami, executive director of Petra. "We understand that many in the federal government feel this is better handled by individual states … but we believe that some type of federal bill is needed to establish the goals and the framework for this effort."

Petra — which includes Indorama, DAK/Alpek and APG Polytech Holdings, the three companies that produce the bulk of PET resin in North America — sees legislation as vital to protecting both its members' investments in PET recycling and the overall health of the recycling system.

"We would support a national bottle bill," Vasami said. "If we don't have some kind of an effort that speaks to a well thought out collection scheme, then we're afraid mechanical recycling really is in jeopardy."

The day also included meetings with White House staff, participants said.

A March 1 statement from NSAC said the lobby day participants included the Can Manufacturers Institute, bottled water maker Blue Triton, O-I Glass Inc., and environmental groups like the Container Recycling Institute, Clean Water Action for Rhode Island and Texans for Clean Water.

"I don't think there's ever been a more diverse group lobbying the same thing in this industry," Sanborn said.

The coalition argues that bottle bills, or "recycling refunds" as they are trying to rebrand the idea, is the most effective way to dramatically boost container recycling rates.

It said the 10 U.S. states with bottle bills recycle on average 65 percent of their beverage containers, because the bottles and cans are sold with refundable deposits of a nickel or a dime that incentivize consumers to return them for recycling.

By contrast, in the 40 states without bottle bills the recycling rate for those containers is only 24 percent, the coalition said.

Besides making environmental arguments, Sanborn said they are also emphasizing the business case that packaging companies and major brands are "starving" for more recycled glass, aluminum and plastic to meet both public commitments and state laws requiring more recycled-content packaging.

The group is trying to educate lawmakers in Congress about the business needs, Sanborn said.

"The legislators didn't know that [the companies] were starving for materials that literally are going into landfills down the road," Sanborn said in an interview. "This is eye-opening for them."

She said companies in the coalition argue investments and jobs are at risk without more supplies of recycled materials.

"I think there's a lot of legislators that are going to go visit these plants and have a whole new appreciation for how time-sensitive and important this is," Sanborn said.

"The companies that are starving for feedstock that are in states now that are going to lose jobs — literally some of them are at risk of closing in the next few years if we cannot get these numbers up — they have an urgency," she said. "And we need to get these legislators to hear it."

The coalition said it's been trying to take a bipartisan approach.

Bottle bills have traditionally been Democratic priorities in Congress. For example, one has been included prominently in the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act, legislation that is largely limited to Democratic support.

But Sanborn said the coalition wants bipartisan buy-in and met with Republicans including Indiana Sen. Mike Braun and the offices of Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn, South Carolina's Tim Scott and Texas Sen. John Cornyn, among others, as well as many Democrats.

"We had a fantastic meeting with Sen. Braun. He was very, very engaging," Sanborn said. "You can't make progress if you keep doing what's been happening. You have to do something else. … We met with Democrats, Republicans and independents, literally almost equally split."

Coalition members acknowledged hurdles, though, whether those are questions from lawmakers in Washington who say states should take the lead, or opposition from the companies that operate municipal curbside recycling systems and worry that bottle bills will pull valuable materials from their revenue stream.

"We're trying to work as best we can with the haulers, looking at some of the bills that have been introduced in various states that have some kind of mechanism that keeps the haulers whole," Vasami said.

A prominent Democrat on plastics issues, Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., said last year that he had been holding discussions to explore what he termed "national framework" legislation that could set guidelines for states. He chaired a Senate hearing in September 2023 on bottle bills.

Sanborn declined to discuss strategy in detail but said the loose alliance would explore state bottle bills, too.

"The biggest hurdle for everyone right now is divided government and that people can't seem to even have civil conversations about things now," she said, but added the Feb. 28 activities left her more optimistic than after the coalition's first Washington lobby day a year ago.

"I'm way, way more hopeful after this day than I was after last year," Sanborn said. "Last year, I had hope but this year I actually believe we're going to start to see bottle bills being introduced in red states … because the industry has stepped up their lobbying."

Vasami said Petra has been working with other the other materials industries on state recycling legislation for the last year.

One equipment and materials supplier to plastic and packaging firms, Atlantic Packaging of Wilmington, N.C., joined the coalition for the Feb. 28 meetings and said it sees opportunities to build consensus.

"Large consumer products companies tell me every day that they don't have enough recycled content to make their packaging as sustainably as they want to, and a national recycling refund is such an intuitive way to help," said Caroline DeLoach, the company's director of sustainability. "There will be plenty of points to debate to hammer out a consensus, but we're ready and able to have that healthy debate."

A national bottle bill could create 100,000 jobs as it raises recycling rates and keeps containers out of landfills, NSAC said.

"Right now, we are landfilling staggering amounts of all kinds of recyclables," said Randy Burns, chief sustainability and corporate affairs officer for O-I Glass Inc., in a statement. "Sadly, these materials … are buried when they can be returned as manufacturing feedstock and put back to work in the U.S. economy."