Healthy Communities In The News

Advocates are hoping that Gov. Deval Patrick, who included an update of the 25-year-old Bottle Bill in the state budget he released last week, will help lead the charge through the Legislature, where this proposal has been stalled for over a decade.

When the Bottle Bill passed into law in 1982, many of the containers on store shelves today did not exist. Vitamin drinks, iced teas, bottled water, and other 'new age' beverages have all come on the market since that time, and, according to the testimony of former Sen. Lois Pines at last year's hearing, would certainly have been covered by the deposit system had they been around.

Phil Sego of the Sierra Club of Massachusetts said that, while there have been governors before Patrick who have proposed to update the Bottle Bill, our hope is that this time will be different. Given that the update would bring in revenue while eliminating waste and saving cities and towns disposal costs, you'd have to be against motherhood and apple pie to oppose this now.

MASSPIRG, the Sierra Club, the South Shore Recycling Cooperative, the Massachusetts Coalition of Redemption Centers, the Container Recycling Institute, state Rep. Alice K. Wolf, state Sen. Cynthia Creem, and many others have been championing the update for several legislative sessions.

As Janet Domenitz, our MASSPIRG executive director, said, we could win the Super Bowl of recycling by passing this update.

Tonya Sabo Bourassa