Boosted bottle bill could ease recycling crunch

David Abel’s article on the difficulties facing recycling centers was timely (“Recycling: a budget trasher,’’ Page A1, June 5). Our recent annual Town Meeting highlighted the impact on our budget of decreased recycling revenue and increased disposal costs.

While not specifically addressing the issue of contaminants described in the article, one measure to ease this recycling crunch is a long-overdue expansion of the state’s bottle bill. It is ineffective, with the documented growth in bottled water, flavored seltzer, sports drinks, and other drinks, in containers that are not subject to the deposit. It is also apparent that a 5 cent deposit is insufficient motivation for many consumers to return the containers that are subject to the bottle bill, or for individuals to go around collecting these containers for the monetary reward.

The Commonwealth should move to expand the bottle bill to all drink containers regardless of content, and to increase the deposit to 10 cents apiece. To those who cry, “No new taxes,’’ this is not a tax if one returns the bottles. Without an increase in the bottle bill, cities and towns will need to move toward increasing other levies, whether property taxes or pay-per-throw fees, to cover increased disposal costs and decreased or nonexistent recycling income.

An expanded bottle bill would not remove the impurities from the recycling stream but would certainly lower the overall volume, making what’s left much easier to manage.

Paul Siegenthaler

Needham

We can’t just recycle our way to reducing the garbage we make

In “Recycling: a budget trasher,’’ David Abel showed us the overload of New England’s recycling plants since China cracked down on impure recyclables imports this year.

The bottom line is: We make too much junk. Recycling cannot be our go-to, easy-conscience solution. We have to reduce our use of these products altogether, and the place to start is with plastics. National Geographic reports that 5 trillion pieces of plastic pollute our oceans, which takes hundreds of years to biodegrade.

A substantial portion of plastic waste is polystyrene, or Styrofoam. Most polystyrene is used once and then thrown out, where it ends up in landfills or our waterways. A ban on polystyrene in Massachusetts would significantly decrease pollution and help mitigate the mounting crisis for space in the state’s landfills. A bill to ban polystyrene will come to a vote in the Legislature next month.

This bill is not just a nice idea; it’s a necessity if we want to keep our oceans from becoming swirling gyres of garbage. Our Commonwealth has an opportunity to be a leader in solving a global problem. Let’s take the first step forward and ban plastic foam in Massachusetts.

Henry Hintermeister

Medford

Don’t blame this on China

I wonder how high people’s tax bills will have to go, and how many school programs and other essential services will be cut, before people simply stop producing so much waste? The option was never mentioned in the article about rising recycling costs, but isn’t that the heart of the matter?

I know policy can’t be based on attempting to change human behavior, but municipalities may want to start making it clear that rising costs of recycling aren’t so much the fault of China as they are directly linked to the amount of garbage we produce.

Maureen Milliken

Belgrade Lakes, Maine