BOSTON – A public hearing was held this week on a proposal from Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Richard K. Sullivan Jr. to increase the handling fee for bottles.
Sullivan hopes to increase the handling fee for bottles from 2.25 cents/beverage container to 3.25 cents/beverage container.
“This is a limited change that applies to the handling fees at redemption centers,” Sullivan said, adding that “there hasn’t been an increase in many years.”
A public hearing was held in Boston this week and Sullivan said the public can still weigh-in until next week.
Duting the hearing, testimony from the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group (MASSPIRG) was delivered by Janet Domenitz, executive director of MASSPIRG.
Domenitz said MASSPIRG supports Sullivan’s proposal to increase the bottle bill handling fee. The fee is what the distributor pays the retailer for handling the empty containers, a key part of making the bottle bill work.
The handling fee has nothing to do with the deposit, which consumers pay, and gets redeemed when they return the container.
Domenitz said MASSPIRG supports the increase for several reasons.
“Nothing with a price stays the same for 20+ years,” she stated. “The handling fee, (which bottlers pay the handlers of the empty containers covered by the container deposit law known as the bottle bill) has been the same since 1991. You do not have to be an economist or any kind of policy expert to know that someone is getting the very short end of the stick in this equation.”
Another reason she said the increase is needed is because redemption centers “can’t be maintained, never mind thrive, being paid prices for their services from 1991.”
“We need redemption centers to thrive to make the bottle bill work; and the bottle bill is the single most effective recycling tool we have. Approximately one third of all containers with a deposit move through the recycling system via redemption centers. Approximately half the redemption centers which existed a decade ago have closed up shop. This puts a big dent in the successful operation of recycling which the bottle bill enables,” she said.
MASSPIRG pointed out that bottlers warn that consumer prices will go up if they have to pay an additional penny per container.
Sullivan said this proposal only affects redemption centers.
“It’s not an expansion of the bottle bill – although I’m in support of expanding it to include non-carbonated beverage containers,” said Sullivan.
MASSPIRG maintained that the public supports the Bottle Bill.
“A 2011 poll conducted by MassINC Polling Group showed that 86 percent of the public supports the bill, and although most people don’t know every single operational part of what makes the Bottle Bill work, it can’t work much longer if we don’t catch up with the reality of 20+ years of neglect.” Domenitz said. “We need to raise the handling fee in order to keep this popular law functioning.”
