Background | Survey Findings | Focus: New York’s Most Potentially Hazardous Playgrounds | Survey Results
Litter in the Playgrounds | Focus: Are New York’s Playgrounds Getting Safer? | Recommendations and Conclusions
Upstate Playground Table | New York City and Long Island Playground Table
Litter in the Playgrounds
The 2006 Playground Safety Survey included a look at another potential playground hazard ‚ litter. Fifteen percent of the hazard-ridden playgrounds surveyed were littered with empty bottles, cans and/or broken glass.
Bottles and cans littering children's playgrounds are not only unsightly, they can be dangerous. Cuts from broken glass bottles are the most common injury associated with beverage containers in playgrounds. Sharp jagged edges from crushed cans can cause similar injury. In addition, intact empty bottles can be unsanitary and can pose a tripping hazard.
New York has adopted public policy, known as the "bottle bill," to reduce beverage container litter. The bottle bill places a minimum 5-cent refundable deposit on beer and soda containers sold in New York. After New York passed its bottle bill in 1982, beverage container litter dropped by over 70%, and litter rates overall declined by 30%.
A survey conducted by the Boston Children's Hospital found that children's emergency room visits from playground injuries caused by broken glass fell by 60% after Massachusetts adopted a similar bottle law. The authors of the study concluded that "by providing incentives for the return of empty containers, this conservationist policy has been beneficial to urban children by reducing their exposure to broken glass in the environment."
Our findings indicate that more needs to be done to reduce litter and broken glass in New York's playgrounds. More comprehensive litter surveys in New York show that, while the bottle bill is still effective at reducing litter, beverages that are not covered under the law and which have grown in popularity are disproportionately polluting our communities. Two separate litter surveys conducted in New York in 2002, for instance, found that nondeposit containers comprise about 62% of the bottles and cans piling up along the state's rivers and shorelines, despite the fact that they constituted only 22% of the beverage market at the time. Nondeposit beverage containers are six times more likely to end up in the litter as deposit containers, and four times more likely to end up in the trash than recycled.
Legislation, known as the "Bigger, Better Bottle Bill" A2517D(DiNapoli)/S1290D(LaValle), has been pending for several years in the State Legislature to update New York's bottle bill. This proposal would expand the deposit program to include noncarbonated beverages such as bottled water, iced tea, and sports drinks, which now make up 25% of the beverage market and continue to grow in popularity. According to the Container Recycling Institute, more than 3 billion non-carbonated beverages were sold in New York last year that were exempt from the state's current bottle law, about 10% of which were in glass bottles. .
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