Eleventh hour bottle bill reignites debate between environmental, business groups • Rhode Island Current

“I made the bill purposefully vague so we could make adjustments,” McEntee said in an interview prior to the hearing. “It’s a skeleton. It has the bones, but we need to make it so it works for Rhode Island.”

Like prior proposals, the legislation establishes a refundable deposit program for recyclable beverage containers: plastic, glass and aluminum bottles and cans, ranging from 50-milliliter miniature alcohol containers known as “nips” to 3-liter soda bottles. Following similar programs in 10 other states — including Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine and Vermont — customers would pay a 10-cent per-bottle fee at the store. They can get their money back when they return the empty bottle, can or nip.

Rather than dictate where empties get sent — a past point of contention among retailers — the bill calls for a new, nonprofit contractor hired by beverage producers to come up with the rules. The producer responsibility organization (PRO) would work with the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) to set up and carry out required bottle return and redemption components.

The PRO would also be responsible for helping meet state recycling goals, including a mandated 90% return rate of empty bottles by the eighth year of program operations, and working with producers to increase the proportion of containers made from reusable materials.

“This is the simplest, least prescriptive approach to a bottle bill in the nation,” McEntee told lawmakers Wednesday. “It gives the beverage industry room to figure out the rules.”

And there’s no cost to state taxpayers, since producers would pay for administrative fees to run the PRO, McEntee said. Lack of government funding has been a major selling point in states nationwide, 35 of which which have adopted the “extended producer responsibility approach” to tackle recycling in some form: from paper and plastic to electronics, batteries and mercury thermostats, according to an October report by the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Rhode Island’s recycling problem is no secret; from sidewalks and ponds, to the mountain of sprawling, 154-acre Central Landfill in Johnston, recyclable bottles and cans are increasingly ending up in places where they do not belong.

Less than one-third of bottles and cans that can be recycled in Rhode Island are recycled, according to a January 2023 report by the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation, the quasi-public agency that runs the state’s Central Landfill and Material Recycling Facility. Most end up in the landfill or as litter. Nips are a particular problem, as they are too small to be separated out by recycling equipment, according to landfill operators. 

The not-so-succinctly named Special Joint Legislative Commission to Study and Provide Recommendations to Protect our Environment and Natural Resources from Plastic Bottle Waste has spent the last 10 months talking to environmental groups, business representatives and experts in other states about how to reconcile competing interests for the sake of a Rhode Island program. McEntee co-chaired the committee, though she stressed that her legislation does not reflect the perspectives of all 18 members.

But, she added, “much of the information in this bill was heard in this study commission and learned by me and other members.”

One option: a QR code-based, automated bag-drop redemption system for recyclable bottles and cans developed by Maine company CLYNK. CEO Matt Prindiville ventured down to Providence Wednesday to explain how his company’s technological solution has boosted recycling rates while maintaining strong customer satisfaction in the states where it operates: Maine, New York, Oregon and Iowa, and soon expanding into Connecticut.

“You’re not going to solve litter through extended producers responsibility alone,” he said. “You’re going to need return systems. The best systems are the ones that maximize convenience and value for the consumers.”

While McEntee, along with other members of the study panel, favored the bag-drop return system, the legislation leaves it up to the PRO and DEM to decide how and where customers can return their empties.

That worried Jed Thorp, Rhode Island state director for Clean Water Action. Making returns convenient for customers is widely considered a key tenant of successful programs; too few options could defeat the purpose of the program, Thorp said in an interview earlier Wednesday.

“Without having some more details and safeguards for convenience, it makes us a little bit nervous,” Thorp said.