Editorial

Low Deposit, High Return: Save Those Water Bottles

Connecticut's bottle redemption program should get off the dime today thanks to a new nickel deposit on water bottles.

Earlier this year the General Assembly expanded the three-decade-old bottle bill to include bottles of water. That law goes into effect today. We'll drink (water) to that.

The original bill, passed in 1978, imposed a deposit only on bottles and cans of carbonated beverages. Lawmakers did not foresee the boom in bottled water, as well as teas and noncarbonated fruit drinks. Environmentalists have been fighting for decades to get the containers of these beverages — which in some cases are exactly the same bottles as those used for carbonated drinks — included in the bottle bill.

This year they won a substantial, if not total, victory. With the state in dire need of more revenue, the legislature voted to claim the millions of dollars in unredeemed deposits that the bottle bill generates and to include water bottles, as well as bottles for flavored or vitamin water, in the redemption program. Juice and mineral water bottles weren't covered, though proponents are expected to push for their inclusion in the coming legislative session.

The state Department of Environmental Protection estimates that about 500 million water bottles are sold in Connecticut each year. The Container Recycling Institute has the estimate at 580 million bottles of water and 265 million containers of other noncarbonated drinks.

Unfortunately, many of the empties end up on the sidelines of soccer fields, along roadsides or in the waste stream.

The original bottle bill has kept untold billions of bottles and cans from being tossed on the ground or into the garbage. The new law should keep millions more bottles in the redemption system. Plus, the DEP estimates that unclaimed deposits, known as escheats, will bring in $17 million to the state. That is a classic win-win. Now let's get the juice bottles covered.

http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/editorials/hc-water-bottles-deposit.art.artoct01,0,4970711.story