Just 5¢ could help solve our plastic crisis. Your move, New York

We have few easy ways to make a meaningful dent in our global plastic pollution crisis, yet one deceptively simple solution may cost only a dime.



Our society has devised an effective approach to diverting vast amounts of plastic from the waste stream, and it relies on good old-fashioned economics. By mandating that consumers can redeem an empty plastic bottle for some nominal amount—say 5 or 10 cents—governments have created a marketplace for used single-use beverage containers.



Depending on your state, you may see the redemption value on the side of aluminum cans or glass or plastic bottles. It’s that cryptic list of state abbreviations followed by a cash value (“HI-ME-NY 5¢” or something similar). The higher the payout to redeem a bottle, the more that gets recycled. Now in what could potentially be a significant victory for the environment, New York legislators may push their state’s redemption value from 5 cents to 10 cents.



As the former sustainable materials manager at the Environmental Protection Agency and a sustainability executive at leading global consumer companies, I have dedicated my career to eliminating waste. My years of experience in this field have shown me time and again that we do not value plastic enough.



Plastic is effectively a permanent material. It’s not disposable. It takes up inordinate amounts of space in landfills or, even worse, ends up in the oceans. I wish society could stop the production of every piece of unnecessary, single-use plastic. But change isn’t going to come that quickly.



In the interim, we should do everything we can to recycle single-use plastic. The 10 states with beverage container deposit laws that establish mandatory redemption values (i.e., bottle bills) see an average recycling rate of those materials at around 60%. Those without bottle bills see average recycling rates at around 24%. Bottle bills are also widely appreciated—almost 75% of Americans support bottle return programs.



In New York, where legislators are considering a bottle bill refresh this month, the value currently offered is 5 cents per plastic container. That hasn’t changed since the law was introduced in 1982. While New York has an acceptable recycling rate of 64%, imagine what boosting the value by a nickel could do for the environment and economy. Every year, New Yorkers throw away more than 1 billion plastic bottles—notching the recycling rate by a few percentage points represents a massive opportunity.



Known informally as the Bigger, Better Bottle Bill, the legislation is expected to be voted on in the state Legislature just after Earth Day. The bill faces significant opposition from the beverage industry, which is concerned that the 5-cent increase to the price of beverages will decrease their profits. (While consumers pay the up-front cost at the point of purchase—which they then get back if they redeem the bottles and cans—beverage companies have other cost outlays associated with bottle bills.)



The average American uses 156 plastic bottles each year; in New York state, that equates to more than 3 billion bottles annually. If the proposed increase goes through, analysts project it could increase recycling rates to 89%, keeping more than 773 million more plastic bottles out of landfills each year and generating thousands of jobs in New York.



The bill would also support an invisible workforce of bottle collectors who boost the state’s recycling program by collecting containers that have been littered or thrown away and redeeming their deposits for income. Sure We Can, a Brooklyn-based redemption center, shared that these recyclers diverted almost 12 million containers from New York City landfills last year.



The benefits of increasing the redemption value of plastic bottles go beyond just reducing waste and supporting the recycling community. By keeping plastic in the recycling loop, we are also helping to reduce our carbon footprint. Creating new products from recycled plastic uses less energy than making new products from raw materials, and bottle redemption is one of the most effective ways of collecting high-quality recyclables. States with higher redemption rates historically have seen significantly higher recycling participation rates as well, meaning that the high-quality recyclables that may otherwise end up in landfills are more likely to be given new life.



If you believe, as I do, that plastic’s long life span and potential for reuse should impart higher value on the material, then you should agree that New York’s law is woefully outdated. Now is the time to change it. This bill offers a once-in-a-generation chance to update a law that will have a measurable impact on decreasing pollution and landfill inputs, beautifying public spaces, and boosting the income of often marginalized members of society.







Saskia van Gendt is the head of sustainability at Rothy’s.