As I travel around Maryland, I see so much litter on the sides of roads, much of which is beverage containers. Approximately 5.5 billion beverage containers are sold in Maryland each year. Only about one-fourth of these containers are recycled, with more than 4 million containers going to the landfill or on our roads and waterways. Over half of the beverage containers are plastic bottles that threaten the health of humans and wildlife. Plastic bottles break into smaller and smaller pieces (microplastics) that are ingested by wildlife, as well as humans. Scientists estimate that we consume about a credit card’s worth of plastic each week.
One way to begin to address the litter issue is to pass a beverage container deposit bill (a bottle bill) in Maryland. Maryland Beverage Container Recycling Refund and Litter Reduction Program bills have been introduced in both the House of Delegates (House Bill 331) and the Senate (Senate Bill 342) this legislative session.
This program would create a 10-15-cent refundable deposit on metal, glass and plastic beverage containers, depending on container size. The deposit would be refunded to the customer when the beverage container is returned for recycling. The program would rely on reverse vending machines and other new technologies for convenient container redemption, to achieve at least a 90% recovery rate. More information on the bottle bill can be found at sierraclub.org/maryland/zero-waste.
Currently, there are 10 states that have bottle bills, since as early as 1977. Each of these states has seen a dramatic decline in beverage container litter, and a 30%-64% reduction in total litter (bottlebill.org/index.php/benefits-of-bottle-bills/litter-studies-in-bottle-bill-states).
SB 342 was heard in the Senate Education, Energy, and the Environment Committee on Feb. 10. HB 331 will be heard in the House Environment and Transportation Committee on Feb. 11. Please contact your delegate and senator, asking him or her to support this important legislation.
Maggi Gallaher
Salisbury, Maryland
Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.
