Connecticut’s package stores have proposed a 10-cent “recycling fee” as a compromise alternative to the 25-cent deposit Gov. Ned Lamont recommended last month. The Connecticut Package Stores Association also is asking Lamont and the legislature’s Environment Committee to consider a 10-cent fee on 50 milliliter “nip” bottles, though consumers could return that to reclaim a nickel deposit.
The association argued against expanding the state’s bottle recycling program to include large and medium-sized liquor bottles as Lamont suggested in his Feb. 20 budget proposal. These bottles “are already recycled and recovered by homeowners using existing collection programs through private haulers, municipalities, or taken to transfer stations by homeowners,” Carroll Hughes, the association’s executive director, wrote in a memo sent Friday to the Lamont administration and to the Environment Committee.
The state’s recycling program does not extend to all glass containers used to hold food or beverages and “singling out wine and liquor bottles instead of all glass containers used in the home is inappropriate,” Hughes wrote.
Connecticut’s package stores also lack the space to collect and store returned bottles, the association wrote, adding that one-third of these outlets are smaller than 600 square feet in size and another third are smaller than 900 square feet.
The Lamont administration estimated that a 25-cent deposit on full-sized liquor bottles effective Oct. 1 would raise $4.4 million for the state next fiscal year and $6 million in 2020-21. The state would keep the unclaimed deposits. The administration projected a 5-cent deposit on nips would raise $500,000 next fiscal year and $600,000 in 2020-21.