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By LOUIS ROSADO BURCH - August 2, 2020
Connecticut’s container deposit law, known as the “Bottle Bill,” has been a critical part of our state’s recycling infrastructure for the last 40 years. Refundable container deposits are a proven, effective way to incentivize recycling of single-serve beverage containers and reduce litter in our communities. Unfortunately, the system has not been updated in several years to keep up with changing market trends and inflation.
As a result, Connecticut’s redemption rate is now the lowest of any bottle bill state in the U.S. at around 50%. If the General Assembly fails to take meaningful action on this important program soon, it could decline even further.
This is not to say that Connecticut is not serious about waste reduction and recycling, it just means we have a lot of work to do. Gov. Ned Lamont’s administration recently announced it will allow Materials Innovation and Recovery Authority‘s outdated Hartford incinerator retire, rather than grant them the $330 million in subsidies they have demanded in order to keep it in operation. This is the right choice for Connecticut, both from a waste management and an environmental justice standpoint. The facility is aging, it produces harmful air emissions in one of our state’s historically underserved communities, and it hinders progress on meeting our solid waste and recycling goals.
While letting the incinerator retire was the right decision, it does put increased pressure on the state to come up with innovative waste reduction strategies. The Department of Energy and Environmental Protection adopted the Comprehensive Materials Management Strategy back in 2016, which set a goal of diverting 60% of the state’s municipal solid waste — through source reduction, reuse and recycling — by 2024. We are now halfway to that 2024 deadline and have arguably made only incremental progress in achieving the goal.