NWRA paper analyzes impact of bottle bills on curbside recycling

The National Waste & Recycling Association (NWRA), Arlington, Virginia, has released a white paper titled “Bottle Bills Impact Curbside Recycling Programs” that identifies how bottle bills affect curbside recycling programs by diverting valuable commodities from material recovery facilities (MRFs).  

“States frequently turn to bottle bill legislation in an effort to increase recycling,” NWRA President and CEO Darrell Smith says. “However, the facts do not bear that out. Revenue reductions to recycling programs from bottle bills will only make curbside recycling programs more expensive and [make it] more difficult to increase the national recycling rate.”  

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The association says bottle bills create a separate, parallel recycling system for less than 5 percent of the waste stream. In doing so, they divert valuable materials from recycling facilities or MRFs. This reduces the overall value of materials collected through curbside recycling programs that feed MRFs.  

The loss of this revenue will increase curbside recycling costs for customers and municipalities, which could lead municipalities to discontinue their curbside recycling programs that rely on the revenue from these commodities, the NWRA report says. It also could threaten public and private recycling facilities, forcing them to cut jobs or shut down because of loss of revenue.  

Bottle bills do not necessarily increase recycling rates, according to the NWRA. For example, in 2019, Michigan had an 89 percent beverage container redemption rate but an overall recycling rate of 19 percent, the association adds.  

The paper states the Environmental Protection Agency’s goal of reaching a 50 percent U.S. recycling rate can only be achieved through healthy curbside recycling programs. The revenue reductions resulting from bottle bills to curbside recycling will make curbside programs significantly more expensive than the current marketplace and set the industry further back from attaining this goal, according to the paper.