Know the Opposition:

Testimony Regarding Deposit Expansion - Bill #549

Wayne D. De Feo
Environmental Consultant

Expansion of deposit legislation is taking a program whose time has come and gone and making it more cost prohibitive.

Recycling:

• Bottle are no longer refilled. Deposit legislation no longer has the meaning that it did 20 years ago.
• Connecticut currently recycles ONLY 18.8% of its municipal solid waste stream.
• The existing deposit law adds no more than 2% to this recycling rate.
• If you expand the law as proposed, you might add another 1.6% to your recycling rate IF everyone returned the bottles targeted.
• The evidence simply does not support the argument that a deposit law - as environmental law position.

In Contrast:

• New Jersey recycles 38% of its waste stream.
• New Jersey recycles more than three times the amount of glass as Connecticut does on a per capita and total tonnage basis.
• New Jersey recycles as much plastic as Connecticut does on a per capita basis.

Popularity:

• Focus groups conclude that people overwhelmingly support the replacement of deposit legislation with a comprehensive recycling program once they realize the cost inefficiencies of deposit legislation.

Litter:

• Claiming that this legislation is an anti-litter bill is simply not accurate.
• Combined, beverage containers account for no more than 8.5% of the litter stream.
• An expanded deposit law will do nothing to address the other 90%+ of the litter stream.
• Studies are clear that states with comprehensive litter control programs are as clean or cleaner than states with deposit laws.
• These same studies clearly show that when it comes to beverage containers, states with comprehensive litter control programs have no more beverage container litter than states with deposit laws.

Cost of Programs:

• Comprehensive recycling programs are cost effective to operate.
• Deposit legislation costs the consumer/taxpayers of Connecticut $600-$700 per ton to recycle materials that should cost no more than $150/ton to recycle.
• The current Deposit law costs the consumer $.78/case more than necessary for goods purchased.
• The inclusion of existing deposit materials into the comprehensive recycling program will have a negligible impact on the cost of those programs.
• The Deposit law removes the most valuable components of the recyclable stream, which artificially increases the cost of the existing comprehensive recycling programs.

The Conclusion:

• The Connecticut Deposit law is expensive.
• The Connecticut Deposit law does not contribute in any meaningful way to the recycling rate of the state.
• An expansion of the existing deposit law will not contribute in any meaningful way to the recycling rate in Connecticut.
• The Connecticut Deposit law does not contribute to a cleaner state according to any objective and technically repeatable research.

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