On Oct. 31, MASSPIRG headed up a long list of supporters testifying for an update to the commonwealth’s landmark Bottle Bill at a legislative hearing.

Before the packed hearing room, MASSPIRG’s Janet Domenitz called for an overhaul of the 25-year-old recycling program and registered support for House Bill 3356. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Doug Petersen (Marblehead), would expand the scope of the Bottle Bill to include more containers, such as bottled water and sports drinks. The bill would also restore the Clean Environment Fund, a program that channels unclaimed deposits toward environmental protection efforts, and raise the handling fee that redemption centers and retailers receive as compensation for their work processing returned containers.

Before the hearing, advocates from MASSPIRG and Massachusetts Sierra Club were joined by Sen. Cynthia Creem (Newton), Reps. Doug Petersen and Alice Wolf (Cambridge), James Hunt, chief of Environmental and Energy Services for the City of Boston, and Cambridge City Councilor Brian Murphy at a press conference to show support for the update.

At the hearing before the Joint Committee on Telecom, Utilities and Energy, supporters testifying for an update ranged from legislators, to redemption center owners, to students from a western Massachusetts high school class. The Massachusetts Food Association, Shaw’s and several other businesses spoke out against reform.

Former Sen. Lois Pines of Newton, an author of the original Bottle Bill, testified after the bill’s opponents. Said Pines, “These are the ‘same old, same old’ arguments we heard back then, and yet we ended up with a great recycling program, which now needs to be tweaked.”