Letter to the Editor

Situation cries for updated bottle bill

DERRICK Z. Jackson’s “Let’s not trash our roadways’’ (Op-ed, June 15) doesn’t go far enough. That the deposit on bottles should be expanded seems a no-brainer, even though some knee-jerk reactionaries call it a tax. When the bottle bill went into effect in 1983, opponents said the collection process would be an unsanitary nightmare for retail stores. It wasn’t. Now the equipment and procedures already exist to collect bottles.

The only people bottle deposits penalize are those too lazy to return their empties. For those who toss bottles away, this policy is a small fine, and for others it’s an incentive to pick up the discards. In effect, litterers pay others to clean up after them.

However, 5 cents today is worth only about half what it was in 1983. Raising the deposit to 10 cents would increase the incentive to what it was then. It costs those who return bottles nothing, while increasing the reward for charities, the poor, and the civic-minded who collect discarded bottles.

A side note: It would help if people would pick up litter, even if it isn’t theirs, when they’re walking in parks, parking lots, and along roads, especially when there’s a barrel conveniently nearby.

Bruce Novak
Needham

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/letters/articles/2010/06/19/situation_cries_for_updated_bottle_bill/