Letter to the Editor

Bottle bill’s dirty secret: It’s a tax

IN YOUR Sept. 28 editorial “Expand bottle bill,’’ you take the shortsighted view that expanding the state’s archaic bottle law makes it better. The facts, however, would suggest that the state should take a more comprehensive approach to recycling and litter issues. Just consider:

Unlike when the law passed, today more than 85 percent of residents have state-approved curbside and drop-off programs. It makes little sense to continue a dual system that requires consumers to put some containers out in their blue bins and then drag the rest of them to the grocery store.

The redemption rate for bottle law containers has dropped more than 20 percent as the public has become accustomed to putting their recyclables in the blue bins, a far less expensive approach.

The dirty little secret is that the state keeps the unclaimed nickels. This money is the result of the dwindling return rate for bottle law containers, and it is now at a whopping $37 million dollars a year. That’s 740 million containers a year that are unredeemed. In other words, for the law to do what the proponents want it to do, it has to fail.

The bottle law is nothing more than a regressive indirect tax on consumers.

Christopher P. Flynn
President Massachusetts Food Association Boston

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/letters/articles/2009/10/03/bottle_bills_dirty_secret_its_a_tax/