CRI credits DRS modifications for Connecticut container recycling rate boost

The Culver City, California-based Container Recycling Institute (CRI) says changes to the deposit return system (DRS, also known as a bottle bill) in Connecticut have helped the beverage container redemption rate in that state increase by 21 percent in 2024 compared with 2023.

CRI says the recycling rate jump demonstrates the need for program upgrades in other DRS states. In many of those other states, statistics are showing a trend of declining redemption rates during the past 10 years, according to the group.

The beverage container redemption rate in Connecticut rose from 44 percent in 2023 to 65 percent last year, following the implementation of what CRI calls “significant DRS program improvements”

In eight of the nine other DRS states in the U.S. for which CRI has information, rates were largely static from 2023 to 2024, showing changes ranging from a 1 percent increase to a 3 percent decline.

CRI President Susan Collins credits Connecticut’s Senate Bill 1037, signed into law in 2021, for several modifications phased in between that year and 2024. Changes including adding noncarbonated beverages and malt-based hard seltzer to the DRS program and, effective Jan. 1, 2024, increasing the deposit-refund amount for covered beverages from 5 cents to 10 cents.

According to Collins, increasing the container deposit amount from 5 cents to 10 cents is extremely important for improving redemption rates.

“A nickel in 2025 is worth about a penny compared to the mid-1970s,” she says. “It is no longer enough of a financial incentive for consumers to continue returning empty bottles and cans. Other DRS states need to approve legislation that increases the deposit amount.”

According to CRI, of the 10 U.S. deposit states with DRS programs, three—Connecticut, Michigan and Oregon—provide a 10 cent deposit on all covered containers.

In 2021, CRI projected that the increase in Connecticut’s DRS deposit-refund value, along with other DRS program changes, would result in a large increase in its redemption rate based on evidence from other states and countries.

This proved true, according to CRI, citing the 21 percent redemption rate increase last year as initial evidence.