You may have noticed that there is now a ten-cent deposit required on bottles and cans that contain carbonated beverages (soda), beer, water, juice, cider, sports drinks, tea, coffee, and energy drinks. Not included are containers for dairy products, hard liquor, and wine, or any containers made of paper (cartons). Also exempt from the deposit are containers that are either larger or smaller than a certain size.
While recycling over-all hasn’t decreased, the five-cent deposit was deemed too little to keep these bottles in the established lane where transfer workers don’t need to spend additional time separating unredeemed bottles and cans from the rest of the trash. The larger deposit is designed to better incentivize the public to recycle their used bottles and cans, as in recent years, Connecticut’s rate of returns hasn’t kept up with other states with similar programs.
While 758 million bottles and cans were redeemed in Connecticut in 2022, the redemption rate of 44.3 percent was well below that of nearby New York, where redemption rates have averaged above 65 percent.
Widely known as the “Bottle Bill,” Connecticut has imposed a deposit on some containers since 1978. While most people today see deposits as a means of encouraging recycling to protect the over-all ecology, the law was originally passed simply as a means of limiting roadside litter. Modern recycling is meant more to stem the depletion of our natural resources and reduce the amount of garbage that is either burned, buried in a landfill, or dumped in our oceans. Historically speaking, it is reuse or repurposing that made up a good deal of the recycling efforts throughout much of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Milk and soda bottles readily come to mind when people think back to how liquids were dispensed during the first half of the 20th century. Prior to the mid-to-late 19th century, most people who lived outside of the city had their own cow, so there was no need for a sealable container so that the milk could be transported home from the store. The first glass milk bottle to be issued a patent was designed by George Henry Lester on January 29, 1878. Named the Lester Milk Jar, it had a glass lid that was held in place with a metal clamp-pressure screw device. It was expensive to produce, but it protected the contents from outside contamination.
By the early 20th century, most dairies were bottling their own milk in their own glass containers. Their logo was often painted on the side. Getting the bottle back so that it could be reused was somewhat of a necessity since those bottles were too expensive to produce to have them go out the door and never be seen again. Since most dairies provided a home delivery service, this wasn’t much of an issue, as the delivery man would retrieve the empties when he placed the new bottles in the milk box found on just about every back stoop in suburban America.
Reuseable bottles were even used for dispensing the cream found in restaurants. Individually sized bottles with cardboard stoppers could be found in virtually every modestly priced restaurant and diner in America. While the fancier places might have put a small pitcher of cream on every table where a cup of coffee or tea was ordered, places like Howard Johnson’s put out tiny bottles of cream, usually sitting in a small bowl of ice to keep it fresh. Creamers that weren’t opened and used could then be given to the next customer. At the end of the day, those tiny bottles went back to the dairy where they were washed and sterilized before being refilled and reused.
Cardboard milk cartons were introduced in the 1930’s (there were some made prior to that, but until makers got the waxed coating perfected enough to keep the liquid in and the printing legible on the outside of each carton, they gained little traction). While those cartons were less expensive to produce than glass bottles, prior to uniform homogenization and labeling, most milk buyers preferred to be able to look inside a glass bottle to see how much cream content there was.
Prior to the introduction and widespread use of plastic or aluminum pouches that now contain ketchup and mustard, restaurant and diner owners regularly refilled those condiment bottles and placed them on every table. Sugar was dispensed in reusable glass cylinders with metal tops that allowed customers to pour what they needed into their coffee or iced tea. Coffee was delivered to the table in white China cups and if you wanted it to go, you provided your own insulated thermos. No empty paper or Styrofoam containers to toss. Utensils were always made of metal, so there was no plastic waste there either.
Soda came in bottles that often earned a penny or two when returned to the store. Deposits weren’t mandated or collected by either the retailer or the government, but bottlers generally reimbursed retailers the money they gave or credited to their customers to keep their bottles in circulation. Pure economics dictated the recycling and reuse of those glass bottles, not the concern for producing less trash.
The first printed metal boxes were used in the United States just after the Civil War. Artwork and lettering made tin a great alternative to paper and cloth packaging, since metal containers better protected the products within from damage during shipping, and their uniform shapes made merchandise easier to stack and display on store shelves.
Tea was sold in tins that kept it dry and free of unwanted moisture before it was ready to be consumed. The same with cakes of toothpowder and matches that needed to be kept dry. Tobacco, crackers, cookies, cocoa, and even cereals such as shredded wheat were all marketed in tin boxes.
Manufacturers went to great lengths to produce attractive and colorful containers. They weren’t just a good marketing tool prior to sale, but the ability for consumers to repurpose those tin boxes for storage kept the product’s name in front of the consumer for as long as the box remained in use. One look on eBay will prove how many of those tins have survived over a hundred years of repurposed use. How many of today’s generic plastic containers survive for even five years?
Our ancestors recycled, re-used, and repurposed much of what they used in the 19th century. The Rag Man would travel throughout the countryside collecting old scraps of cloth that he would then sell to be processed into linen paper. The Tin Man – not the one without a heart – would come by once or twice a year to either repair metal products or sell you something new if repairs couldn’t be made. He also collected old metal goods that he would then sell for scrap.
During World War II, there was a concerted effort to recycle just about anything that could be recycled. Raw materials were in scarce supply, and the war effort needed recycled metals and rubber to build the thousands of planes, tanks, and ships that were being produced for the military.
It wasn’t until the 1960’s, when local governments began to realize how quickly their municipal landfills were reaching their capacities, that recycling became a priority. Post-war prosperity had created a throw-away mentality among consumers that was creating more trash than could be easily disposed of. While curbside recycling would certainly benefit the environment, the main stimulus was still economic.
Adding to the problem of where to put all that trash was the incredible increase in the use of plastics during that time period. The plastics created over the last century or so have greatly enhanced our ability to produce cheaper products, extend the shelf life of certain foods and beverages, and create virtually impenetrable packaging to protect relatively small products from making their way into unscrupulous shoppers’ coat pockets.
Of course, the bad news is that if simply discarded after use, many plastics have a half-life longer than nuclear waste. To make matters even worse, some forms of plastic aren’t even recyclable. The traditional 6-pack rings that hold soda cans together are a perfect example of plastic that can’t be reused. But plastics that are recyclable greatly save space in our landfills when separated from the rest of the trash and then reprocessed.
In 1960, just over six percent of municipal solid waste was recycled. Recycling rates increased to just ten percent by 1980; but nearly thirty percent by 2000, and they continue to grow as environmental concerns and efforts to address them increase. Those efforts have led to the decrease in the amount of waste going into landfills from nearly ninety-five percent in 1960 to less than fifty percent today.
So, when you pay a couple of bucks more in deposit fees for all those plastic and aluminum beverage containers going forward, think of it as every little bit making a difference.
