Henrietta, N.Y. – The New York State Assembly wants to expand the bottle bill. The measure could add sports drinks, energy drinks, some fruit juices and teas.
“All the products that don't have a five-cent return on them, it’s making it to the garbage,” said Lawrence Kinsella, owner of the redemption center Recycling Makes Cents in Henrietta. “It needs to have five cents on it so more people and the consumers will return it.”
The more beverage containers that have a deposit, the more that will be returned and recycled, said Kinsella.
But this change in the law could also help businesses. Kinsella gets three-and-a-half cents for each refundable beverage container.
“I get 300 to 500 iced teas a day that are not redeemable for the nickel,” said Kinsella, who recycles each non-refundable beverage container that comes into his shop.
Across town in Spencerport, sorting more than redeemable beverage containers is part of daily business for Ridge Nickelback.
They expect that adding more beverage containers to the deposit list would bring in more business.
“I think people would definitely attempt to bring them in more often, and it would definitely help our business because we see a lot of them,” said beverage container assorter Brittany Depasquale.
State Democrats project this expansion would bring in $5 million annually. They want that money to go to the state's Environmental Protection Fund. But critics say expanding the bottle bill is just another tax on consumers.
