single Use Plastics can be stopped. Here is how.

We are writing to you today to request that you support Bill S.984: The Break Free from Plastic Pollution Act including a national bottle bill. This bill will include minimum recycled content requirements, and ban certain single-use plastic products. Moreover, it will include a national beverage container deposit return program (Bottle Bill) which is sorely lacking at the federal level. Millions of plastic beverage containers are thrown away every hour. Since each of these plastic containers takes several hundred years to degrade, every plastic beverage container ever thrown away still exists in the environment. Plastic beverage containers are the biggest contributors to marine litter. Where implemented, Bottle Bills have shown to be effective at reducing litter, conserving natural resources, and reducing landfill usage. They also shift the costs for collection and processing of these containers from the tax payer to their actual users. This is where the costs should be born. It just makes sense.
With China’s ban on many kinds of imported recyclables there is a new need to develop viable recycling systems to reduce the usage of our limited landfills. Where they have been implemented, Bottle Bills have shown to be well-liked and effective recycling systems. Surveys indicate that on average more than 80% of people around the world support a bottle bill, and were supported by the over 75% of United States citizens in 1993. Several states currently have Bottle Bills, and research shows that these bills are supported by a majority of their populations and dramatically increase bottle recycling. In 2010 states with bottle bills recycled aluminum cans at a rate of 84% compared to 39% in states with other recycling systems such as curb side recycling. With money on the line, consumers take notice. They want their money back.
Bottle Bills, save money for recycling operators who often discard contaminated materials from single-stream curbside collection programs. The Container Recycling Institute (CRI) found that only 60% of single-stream curbside glass is recycled into new bottles, while 98% of glass returned in states with bottle bills is successfully recycled.
Every province in Canada, 10 States and Guam have enacted some form of a Bottle Bill. Corporations such as Coca-Cola realize the need for recycling and have rolled out their “Every Bottle Back” ad campaigns. It is time that the federal government catches up to the sentiments of the American people constituents and enacts a federal bottle bill.