Two Cents on America’s Recycling Problem (and the Nickel That Might Fix It)
Joseph Shan
America’s Recycling Problem
Germany's Pfandsystem, a nationwide bottle deposit program, achieves a recycling rate of nearly 98 percent for eligible containers.
While several U.S. states have achieved substantially higher beverage-container recycling rates through deposit systems, the country as a whole lacks a nationwide system comparable to Germany’s Pfandsystem. States with deposit systems (also known as bottle bills) provide a closer look into the hidden complexity behind something as mundane as recycling.
What is a Bottle Bill?
A bottle bill is a law that adds a refundable charge to qualifying containers, a deposit that consumers can reclaim if they return the container (like cans or glass bottles) to a store or redemption center. In summary, consumers pay around an extra 5 cents (in Germany, this number can be up to 25 cents) for cans and bottles and, once returning the now-empty bottles, get their 5-cent deposit back. This system is currently used in California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Oregon, and Vermont. Each operates under its own rules, but they all fall under a broader framework policy called extended producer responsibility (EPR).
EPR is the principle that the producers of a product should be at least partly responsible for their products after they've been used. This could mean paying a fee for all packaging put into the market, and this collected fee can then be used to expand or improve existing municipal recycling systems. Bottle bills are a narrow example of EPRs, and while the two are sometimes positioned as two separate options, they can often be employed together to greater effect. Bottle bills are targeted specifically towards beverage containers, while EPR laws often cover a broader range of materials.
Are They Effective?
While domestic recycling programs aren’t as unified or streamlined as Germany’s, it is clear they work. States with deposit laws recycle around 46 to 67 percent of their beverage containers, while non-deposit states see this number sitting around 5 to 21 percent.
Why? In part because of consumer psychology: People are generally more loss-averse than gain-seeking. In other words: they hate losing more than they love winning. So armed with the intuitive perspective that the 5 cents deposited is a loss, they are more motivated to recoup their money through recycling — an additional motivation on top of the usual gain-seeking incentive to save the environment. In addition, the deposit system is simple: consumers return their purchased bottles to participating stores and redemption centers, often the same store where they made their purchase. There’s no need to remember and learn how to properly dispose of their trash. It reduces the cognitive load on the consumer, making the behavior easier to perform.
And aside from the fact that bottle bill states receive higher recycling rates, a bottle bill policy also encourages higher quality in recycled materials. Deposit materials are returned cleaned and sorted, instead of being thrown into a bin and potentially contaminated by other waste. Consumers don’t need to be aware of proper recycling practices and categorization to make use of the bottle bill, which simplifies the practice and encourages more consumers to participate in deposit-recycling.
Bottle bills are also far more effective than curbside recycling, not because of any positive qualities of bottle bills, but because of the unfortunate downsides of curbside recycling. As of 2021, only 5 to 6 percent of US plastic waste was actually recycled. Part of the problem is that other countries aren’t willing to import as much recycled plastic anymore, and part of it is that the existing recycling infrastructure isn’t robust enough. In fact, it has been on a downward trend: over the past 15 months, the US has lost nearly 25 percent of its recycling capacity as manufacturers continually prefer to use virgin plastics over recycled ones.
What happens to the rest of the recycling, then, if it isn’t actually recycled? A large amount (2.25 million metric tons) of recyclables ends up being burned or dumped in the ocean or third-world countries, since it’s cheaper than processing the contaminated, lower-value material. This is a real health hazard; burning plastics releases toxic chemicals into the air that are harmful to biological life and to the humans living near those waste sites.
Bottle bills sidestep this consequence mostly because, as mentioned before, the recycled material is of higher quality. And manufacturers have an incentive to buy recycled materials, too, as a growing number of states pass legislation requiring a certain percentage of new plastic bottles to contain recycled content.
This is the basic idea of a circular economy model, where materials are kept in continuous use and cycled back into new products, rather than being used and then thrown away. Bottle bills combine that model with EPR so that the financial responsibility for that cycle is put on producers rather than consumers. It is the distributors, or sometimes the state, that pay the handling fee for managing such recycling systems.
Could They Be Better?
Bottle bills are not costless, however. Aside from the initial deposit, bottle bills can sometimes lead to increased prices for consumers. This is usually because manufacturers use the implementation of the bill as a convenient cover to disproportionately raise their product prices. Bottled water increased by 4 percent in New York when it updated its law in 2009 to add non-carbonated bottled water to its bottle bill — an increase higher than the 5 cents the bill asked for from its consumers. Luckily, this trend has not occurred in all bottle bill states: a Massachusetts state survey found no meaningful price difference for consumers in beverages sold in deposit states and those sold in its neighboring non-deposit states.
Bottle bills also aren’t immune to failure. Delaware repealed its bill in 2010 and replaced it with a nonrefundable 4-cent fee. That’s because the system wasn’t consistently enforced, as many stores refused returned containers. Under this new fee, which was used to improve curbside recycling, their recycling rate rose by around 10 percent in 6 years. The question remains open as to how much of those materials actually end up being recycled.
And perhaps the biggest issue bottle bills face is simply their passage into legislation. Dozens of states over the past decade have suggested a new or altered bottle bill, almost all of which have failed in the face of pushback from plastic and beverage manufacturers. Since 1987, only one state, Hawaii, has successfully passed a brand new bottle bill.
The resistance from manufacturers makes a certain sense: a bottle bill puts operational costs and logistical responsibility directly onto distributors and retailers, something that a broader EPR fee or a general curbside tax does not do, which is partly why manufacturers often push EPR as an alternative to bottle bills, even though the two work well together, and already do in several states.
The Current Climate
Right now, several states, including Maryland, Washington, Rhode Island, and New York, are actively considering new or expanded bottle bills, and Michigan is facing a simultaneous call to expand its law and a separate push from industry groups to repeal it outright.
What Can You Do?
The most effective thing you can do probably isn't changing your recycling habits, but contacting a state legislator. Bottle bills are decided by state, which means a single state senator's vote on a specific bill can have a larger impact than years of recycling at home. If you live in any of the aforementioned states (Maryland, Washington, Rhode Island, New York, or Michigan), consider reaching out to your state representative and say you support it.
If your state doesn't have a bottle bill at all, you can write a letter or give a call to a state legislator asking for one, or give support to a local environmental group already pushing for one.
And for a more immediate, individual effect, look into whether your state has a recycled-content mandate and support brands that are actually buying that recycled material rather than using cheaper virgin plastic.
Citations
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