Study Commission Recommends R.I. Implement Both Bottle Bill and Extended Producer Responsibility Program

Or perhaps we'll get neither

By Rob Smith / ecoRI News staff

Ban nips - reduce roadside litter AND drunk driving

After 18 months of study, more than a dozen meetings, and hundreds of pieces of testimony, evidence, and presentations, Rhode Island’s joint study commission on plastic waste released its report, which revealed, unsurprisingly, that legislation in support of a bottle bill faces steep opposition.

The bottle bill is one of those pieces of environmental legislation that remain stuck in a state of political limbo. Advocates and pro-bottle bill lawmakers every year lobby heavily for the state to adopt a bottle deposit system, where consumers can turn in empty plastic bottles and other containers in exchange for a small refund, but the legislation rarely escapes committee.

It’s popular with environmental groups and residents who say they are sick of finding alcohol nips and other plastic waste littering parking lots, waterways, roadsides, and parks. But the legislation has always been extremely unpopular with the state’s beverage distributors and liquor stores.

The bottle bill commission, led by Rep. Carol McEntee, D-South Kingstown, a longstanding sponsor of such legislation, and Sen. Mark McKenney, D-Warwick, was an attempt to study the issue more thoroughly and hopefully reach some kind of compromise between bottle bill advocates and opponents.

For McEntee and McKenney, the stakes of the commission were clear. “The recycling system in Rhode Island is not working well,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter prefacing the commission’s final report released Tuesday. “Too much recyclable packaging is ending up in the landfill, as well as the streets and waterways. Anti-litter initiatives … are certainly worthwhile and would be enhanced by the recommendations being made by this commission.”

The two lawmakers noted the commission was shown no evidence that anti-litter programs boost the state’s recycling rates.

Perhaps, unsurprisingly, compromise on the issue remains elusive. The report contains three recommendations, the first of which is for the General Assembly is to pass both a deposit return system (DRS) and an extended producer responsibility (EPR) bill, which makes paper and packaging producers accountable for the entire life cycle of their materials, including recycling. The bottle bill legislation proposed this year would create a 10-cent deposit for the system, double what Massachusetts charges.

Both are programs that lawmakers have proposed separately in recent years, but the chief finding of the study commission is that the systems work better in tandem, and the commission recommended that the programs be run by a producer responsibility organization (PRO) made up of the producers of plastic bottles.

“Testimony indicated, though, that EPR for packaging, without a DRS, would not have any appreciable benefit in terms of litter reduction,” the commission wrote.

The other two recommendations from the commission were merely that each program be implemented individually.

At least one study commission member, Rhode Island Beverage Association representative Margaret Hogan Sweeney, went on record to support only an EPR system, citing the increased cost of doing business when implementing a bottle deposit system.

“Attempting to establish both programs simultaneously is a staggering proposition in terms of investment, regulatory burden on the state, and costs to businesses,” Sweeney wrote in a letter to the commission dated March 14.

Meanwhile, the Rhode Island Liquor Operators Collaborative, Rhode Island Food Dealers, Colbea Enterprises, National Beer Wholesalers, and the Rhode Island Beverage Distributors, the other industry groups represented on the study commission, wrote in a separate March 14 letter that they supported none of the recommendations being put forward by the commission.

Their concerns were familiar and common catechisms like the cost to businesses, taxpayers, and government, as well as cross-border fraud stemming from the higher proposed deposit fee in Rhode Island.

“If Rhode Island were to implement a 10-cent deposit, there would without a doubt be cross-border fraud, with Rhode Island paying out additional funds to Massachusetts residents,” wrote the industry groups.

The environmental groups on the commission — Save The Bay, Clean Water Action, Audubon Society of Rhode Island, and Just Zero — supported the combined recommendations and the option to create only a bottle bill system.

“The study commission did great work, hearing from experts from across the country on which policies and programs have been effective at reducing litter and improving recycling,” Save The Bay’s Jed Thorp told ecoRI News. “The General Assembly should now follow the recommendations in the report and pass legislation to create a ‘bottle bill’ system for beverage containers and a producer responsibility system for packaging.”

It’s no secret the state has a plastic litter problem. ecoRI News has long reported on the problem of nips and other plastic waste polluting the state’s environment. Municipal recycling rates remain dismal. While 80% of Rhode Island households have access to recycling, the state’s overall recycling rate is 26%. The Central Landfill, which is approaching its fifth decade in service, is expected to reach capacity in the next 20 years.

So, finding solutions to take waste out of the state’s landfill system is more important than ever. The 2023 R.I. Coastal Cleanup Report issued by Save The Bay reported that volunteers collected 22,480 pounds of trash from the state’s shorelines, including 43,858 drinking items — plastic bottles, glass bottles, straws, cans, caps, and stirrers. A 2020 study from Keep America Beautiful estimated that states without bottle bill programs have more litter per capita than states with bottle bill programs by a 2-to-1 ratio.

Legislation based on each recommendation has already been introduced in the House. H6207 would create a joint bottle bill and EPR collection system. It is expected to receive support from a broad coalition of environmental organizations and some industry groups. H6206 would create a bottle bill system in Rhode Island, and H6205 would create an EPR system.

In a statement to ecoRI News, House Speaker Joe Shekarchi said he hadn’t had a chance to review the commission’s final report but had asked former state Department of Environmental Management director Janet Coit, who is advising House leadership on environmental issues, to evaluate it.

“I look forward to hearing her analysis as well as discussing the issues further with the commission chairs,” Shekarchi wrote.

A spokesperson for Senate President Dominick Ruggerio told ecoRI News Ruggerio would be reviewing the report and discussing it with McKenney in the coming weeks.