MIRA believes its time to take the bottle returns out of the hands of the retailer and create a true statewide recycling plan in Michigan
By Epiphany Communications: Coaching & Consulting
It’s been around for nearly 50 years and Midwest Independent Retailers Association (MIRA) contends that the Michigan Beverage Container Act mostly known as the “Bottle Bill” is outdated and needs to change, not expand.
It was enacted in a statewide referendum on November 2, 1976, and was implemented on December 3, 1978. The stated purpose of the Bottle Bill was to reduce roadside litter, clean up the environment, and conserve energy and natural resources.
In July 2023, Michigan lawmakers introduced two bills to expand the state’s bottle deposit law. The proposals, Senate Bill 453 and House Bill 4904, would extend the existing 10-cent deposit on carbonated beverage bottles to all non-carbonated beverage bottles, excluding milk containers.
“The bottle bill that is being proposed would expand the products for return to the water, liquor, wine, and any non-alcoholic carbonated or non-carbonated drink in liquid form that is not dairy based,” said Jerry Griffin, MIRA vice president of Government Affairs. “So everything except milk containers would now be returnable.”
The proposed Bottle Bills also redefine what constitutes a beverage container as one that holds more than 0.1 liters and less than 3 liters or a metal, glass, or plastic container that, at the time of sale, contains 1 gallon or less of a nonalcoholic beverage.
The Bottle Bill was a key issue discussed in Lansing on MIRA’s Legislative Day last fall. While still in place today, much in the marketplace has changed and its status as a driver for recycling continues to diminish. The state reports that return rates are at an all-time low following the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s important that the legislature knows that what made sense 50 years ago does not apply today,” said Bill Wild, MIRA president & CEO. “We have been explaining to the legislature that the Bottle Bill, in its current form, is antiquated and bad for business. It was originally a public response to address litter along the state’s highways and local thoroughfares. I’d like to think we could all agree that it was successful in that regard, but this is a piece of public policy that is well overdue for a revisit.”
There have always been sanitation issues with the bottles, and the returnable assumes valuable square footage inside each business. “We must look at alternatives that focus more on recycling and get these contaminated containers away from our fresh food,” Marvin Jarbo noted while in Lansing. Jarbo is owner of Eastern Market in Canton Township.
MIRA Chairman, Bobby Hesano, has been in the food and beverage business for more than four decades and noted while in Lansing that there is an increasing level of public fatigue with bottle returns. “It is a hassle to clean these containers and return them and no store accepts every brand.”
Language is proposed to be added that would allow retailers with a store footprint of less than 4,000 square feet to limit the dollar amount returnable from any person to $10/day.
It also states a distributor that imports non-alcoholic products from out of state must establish a deposit on those products and keep a record of those deposits as part of its annual filing with the Treasury.
The bill proposes to change the distribution of the bottle bill enforcement fund and create the Bottle Handling Fund. The Bottle Handling Fund is created by depositing a portion of the redeemed deposits which will be distributed 80% to retailers and 20% to distributors. The other portions of the redeemed deposits go to enforcement, environmental cleanup, and programs designed to incentivize recycling programs.
“Most importantly to note, as the Bottle Bill originated in 1976 by voter initiative, for the legislature to make these substantive changes to the act, they must be approved by a ¾ majority of the House and Senate,” said Griffin. “The bottom line is this, we want to take this issue of bottle returns out of the hands of our retailers. Our MIRA members handle food, they should not be in the business of handling waste.”
According to the Michigan.gov website Michigan does not collect statistics regarding beverage container return rates. Information is collected by the State of Michigan Treasury regarding the number of deposits collected and refunded by distributors and they include a chart. They also indicate that the “numbers do not account for the impact of beverage containers purchased in another state or country and returned illegally for a deposit here in Michigan.”
They elaborate on the fraud issue as well stating “The amount of fraud occurring is not currently known. As stated above, each container fraudulently returned in Michigan reduces the amount of money for community pollution prevention projects or cleanup and redevelopment of polluted sites. If you plan to bring in containers from out of state because you are concerned that containers may not be recycled, please deposit them in a recycling drop-off location in the state where you purchased them.”
MIRA is closely working with the legislature in Lansing on the Bottle Bill issue to find other alternatives to the current bottle deposit system. “We do not want to expand a system that is already bad for business and the community,” said Wild. “There are alternatives that make sense for both the business community, the community at large, and the environment. This is an issue our members will want to follow.”
