NY State Bigger Better Bottle Bill

Ever notice all the trash strewn along the roadside all over Orange County? Fast food wrappers, plastic bags, styrofoam containers, and empty plastic bottles. Drive down any high traffic road in our area particularly here in Middletown, NY and I guarantee you will see empty plastic bottles that have been tossed out the windows of cars. Now, of course if people didn't litter it wouldn't be a problem, but people do.

If you look closer at this trash you will notice that the large majority of the bottles will be empty water bottles. You will hardly ever see a soda bottle or can and if you do I bet it will be gone in a day or two. That's because there are people who walk the roads and pickup the bottles and cans for the 5 cent refund. But they don't pickup the water bottles because under current NY State law non-carbonated beverage containers have no deposit and therefore no refund. Look at a water bottle and you will probably see that it only has a redeemable value in the state of Maine. Since a lot more people are drinking bottled water these days, which itself some argue is questionable behavior, this garbage has become a big problem.

This past year a bill got introduced to the NY State Legislature called the Bigger Better Bottle Bill. It adds non-carbonated containers (water, juice, etc...) to the list of containers to be required to have a deposit and redeemable value. The good news is it passed in the House. But it never got voted on in the Senate. So I encourage you if you are in NY, or do the same in your state, to contact your local State Senator and ask him/her to support this bill when the Senate session resumes. Don't know who your local NY State Senator is? Find them here.

If it helps, here's the Email I wrote my local Senators. Feel free to copy it and fill in the blanks:

Dear Senator [Your Senator's Name Here],

I am disappointed that the NY State Bigger Better Bottle Bill (A8055A, S5850A) did not get the chance to come up for a vote in the NY Senate before the 2008 session ended. I am not sure what you position on this bill is, but I encourage you and others in power to support it.

I live in [Your Town/City Here], NY where the rural roadsides are littered with trash from drivers. But if you look at the trash closely you will hardly ever find a soda bottle or can. You will mostly find water bottles making up most of the beverage container trash. Part of this may be the bottled water industry taking a bigger share of the beverage market. But I also suspect that the folks who walk the roads, collecting bottles for refund money just let those water bottles lay there because they under current NY State law they can't be redeemed like soda bottles can.

I think adding a five cent deposit to water bottles will help clean up the environment as well as provide the state with potential revenue (from the bottles that end up not getting returned). Those funds could be invested in other areas where we need help with in our state. This bill will help clean up the environment and lessen the eyesore of trash that really takes away from the natural beauty of our area.

Thank you,

[Put your Name and FULL ADDRESS here]

You can learn more about this issue at BottleBill.org