Ten states across the country have already implemented bottle bills, with Oregon becoming the first in 1971. But Maryland is not one of them.
Democratic lawmakers, backed by Sierra Club members from Central Maryland, have tried to get the bill passed in Maryland three times already, only to see it get stuck in committee and not face a vote. This year, local activists are hoping that a renewed push — and growing attention on the dangers of microplastics — will help the bill finally succeed. Del. Jen Terrasa from Howard County and Sen. Ben Brooks from Baltimore County are slated as sponsors of the bottle bill for the 2026 legislative session.
“The counties and states have limited budgets for picking up litter, and they are actually quite dependent on volunteers, but there are only so many of us,” said Kerri Hesley, chair of the Catoctin Group. “We feel like this is the better way to make this a valuable resource. So people have an incentive not to litter, and if someone does litter, another person has an incentive to pick it up.”
According to the version of the bill introduced in the General Assembly last year, Maryland sells 5.5 billion single-use plastic beverage containers each year. In a recent letter sent in support of a proposed state law that would allow Prince George’s County residents to report others for littering or illegal dumping, the State Highway Administration noted that Maryland spent $15 million in fiscal year 2023 on litter cleanup.
Bottle bills in the U.S. and similar deposit return systems in Europe and Australia have cut litter by 50% on average, according to a study by the nonprofit Reloop. And a recent survey commissioned by the Sierra Club found that over 90% of respondents supported the bottle bill.
Still, the initiative has struggled to get off the ground in Annapolis. Rubenstein, who lives in Carroll County, said she spoke with Carroll Del. April Rose, a Republican who serves on the Economic Matters Committee that oversaw the bottle bill the past few years. The bill got a hearing in the Environment and Transportation Committee last year, but not in Economic Matters, and failed to advance out of either, replicating a yearslong pattern.
According to the fiscal note that accompanied last year’s bottle bill, the program would essentially pay for itself, since revenue would offset any operating costs over the next five fiscal years. But the analysis determined that the Bottle Bill could impact small businesses and small container manufacturers, which might incur costs from joining the program and would have to front the cost of the beverage deposit.
We lived under a bottle bill in Oregon, and while it was a hassle, you got used to it. But IIRC, that was only glass bottles, beer and soda mostly. Will the bottles really be recycled, or will they just end up being shipped to China or India for disposal
Here in Michigan, we have had the bottle deposit for decades. At first our highways and roads were much better, but now that the deposit is still just 10 cents, more and more people are simply tossing out their cans and bottles.
ReplyDeleteThe fee applies to any carbonated beverage, like beer and soda. The Empress of Lansing, Governor Whitless, is trying to make the fee apply to any container, including H2O, which currently is not under the deposit scheme. That would be a penalty to small business and big business alike, forcing some places to hire a separate person just to take care of all the containers, with things that contain sugars bringing flies and other insects.