Plastic Reduction Legislation
ACTION ALERT - Feb 27 2024!
The Maryland House of Delegates is holding hearings this week on HB 735, a bill to establish the Maryland Beverage Container Recycling Refund and Litter Reduction Program (the bottle bill). The Maryland Senate will hold hearings on the same legislation next week (SB 642). As Maryland Delegates and Senators hears about these bills from activists in Annapolis, they also need to hear from people across Maryland who care about our streams and wetlands. They need to hear from people who care about the Anacostia watershed. They need to hear from YOU!
Click here for the script to take action!
AWS Supports Maryland legislation HB 735 and SB 642
Five point two billion single use beverage containers are sold in Maryland every year. That is an average of over 14 million plastic bottles, aluminum cans and glass bottles purchased, used, and disposed of every day! However, despite curbside pick-up, less than a quarter of all that trash is actually captured for recycling. The rest, 4 billion containers, never get into the recycling stream. That is almost 2 bottles and cans per each of Maryland’s 6.2 million residents per day, every day, going to rapidly filling, often leaking landfills, to incinerators to be burned into toxic air pollution, or into our neighborhood streets, parks, and rivers. We have all seen the result: the stream and wetlands of the Anacostia clogged with plastic trash, fouling habitat for wildlife and fish and polluting our shorelines and parks. We must do better! And we can….
HB 735 and SB 642 would establish a 10-15 cent deposit on single use plastic, aluminum and glass beverage containers, which would be returned when the containers are bought back the store or a collection center. This system powerfully incentivizes recycling, as seen by in the 10 U.S. states that have bottle bills, where recycling rates of 60%, 70%, even over 80%. Imagine how many plastic bottles and aluminum cans would be kept out of our rivers and stream with that much improvement in Maryland’s unacceptably low 23% recycling rate