www.nypirg.org

Support Cleaner Communities and a Healthier Environment:
Pass the Bigger Better Bottle Bill!

New York’s Returnable Container Act, better known as the “Bottle Bill”  requires a 5-cent refundable deposit on beer and soda containers sold in New York. Since it was enacted in 1982, the bottle billhas been New York's most successful recycling and litter prevention program.

Over the past 25 years more than 90 billion bottles and cans have been returned and recycled through the bottle bill. More than six million tons of plastic, glass and metal have been kept out of our landfills and incinerators. There is less litter and broken glass in our streets, parks, playgrounds and beaches, making them safer, cleaner, and more attractive.

NYPIRG is now spearheading a statewide campaign to update and improve New York's bottle bill.  More than 500 groups, businesses, and local governments support the “Bigger Better Bottle Bill,” which would:

  1. Make our communities cleaner and increase recycling by updating the bottle bill to include deposits on non-carbonated beverages such as bottled water, iced teas, and sports drinks, which weren’t included in the original law because they barely existed back in 1982.  Today, nearly 3 billion non-carbonated beverage bottles and cans end up in the trash or polluting our state’s rivers, beaches, and neighborhoods each year because they don’t have a deposit.
  2. Generate new funding for local environmental needs by requiring beverage distributors to transfer any unclaimed deposits to the State Environmental Protection Fund.  Currently, beverage companies are keeping an estimated $140 million a year in unclaimed deposits from bottles and cans that are not returned.  New York is out of step with many other states, which require beverage companies to return unclaimed bottle deposits to benefit the public.  

Governor Spitzer included the Bigger Better Bottle Bill in his first executive budget proposal. Despite an outpouring of grassroots support for this proposal, however, Senator Bruno refused to allow the bill to make it into the final state budget that was approved in March.

 

Click here to Take Action Now! Please call or write your State Senator and your State Assemblymember today!  Urge them to include the Bigger Better Bottle Bill in the 2008 state budget!