Consumer Blog

NYPIRG's long and tough Bigger, Better Bottle Bill campaign to expand recycling in New York State to include the massive stream of plastic water bottles should finally achieve success on Halloween. From the AP via the New York Times:

A federal judge issued an order on Friday lifting an injunction on an expansion of the state’s bottle bill, meaning that nickel deposits will be imposed on bottled water starting Oct. 31. All containers of water under a gallon will have a 5-cent refundable deposit, as beer and soda containers have had for years.[...] Laura Haight, a senior environmental associate at the New York Public Interest Research Group, praised the ruling, by Judge Deborah A. Batts of United States District Court, saying the new deposits would result in more recycling and less litter.

This ruling reversed an earlier injunction by a different judge. Bottle and can deposit laws reduce waste and litter--it's unfortunate that only nine states have enacted them, due to the political power of the bottling and grocery industries to externalize the costs of their waste onto taxpayers. But maybe New York's bottle bill expansion will promote more returnable container deposit laws.