Vermont

2014: Repeal to key portions of vermont’s CDL avoided; Focus Shifts to State’s Universal Recycling Law

On January 7, 2014, Vermont State Senator Bob Hartwell, Chair of the Natural Resources and Energy Committee, introduced Senate Bill 208, which contains provisions that address several aspects of solid waste and recycling management in the state of Vermont. The beverage container recycling specific provisions included: (1) deleting “liquor” from definition of beverage, thereby repealing the deposit on liquor containers, (2) deleting containers of over 1 liter in size from the definition.

Therefore, containers over one liter in size would no longer be subject to the deposit; and (3) no longer subjecting “biodegradable” containers to the deposit.

Moreover, the deposit was set to stop being collected on Jan. 1, 2015. However, after much public pressure, including from CRI, these provisions were removed from the Bill and thus Vermont’s CDL remains unchanged.

On February 25, 2014 CRI sent a letter of opposition to the partial repeal of Vermont’s deposit program to Senator Hartwell, Chair of the Committee of Natural Resources and Energy, and offered to testify.  CRI pointed out that in 2011, nearly three million (2,860,458) liquor bottles (excludes beer) were recovered in Vermont for a 76.4% rate of return. This includes 2,574,412 glass liquor containers (a 80.9% return rate) and 286,046 PET liquor containers (a 50.9% return rate). In contrast, states without container deposit laws have a beverage container recycling rate of only 30%, on average.  While these provisions would have created a negligible cost savings (less than 1/3 of 1%) for the Department of Liquor  Control, a repeal of Vermont’s container deposit on liquor containers and all beverage types in containers ONE liter in size or above would directly lead to reduced recycling, increased litter, increased costs for municipalities,  reduced income for redemption centers, and decreased economies of scale in the deposit system.

See:  http://legiscan.com/VT/text/S0208/id/906428  andhttp://www.vpirg.org/news/vpirg-and-bottle-bill-alliestestify/ for CRI’s written testimony in opposition to portions of Vermont S.208 (partial repeal of container deposit program)

see: http://www.container recycling.org/images/stories/PDF/VTBill208CRI(2-27 14).pdf