My Two Cents Worth: Bring Back Deposits on Beverage Containers

Support the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act!

In my youth (during the early part of the nineteenth century, mind you), milk and soda and beer came in (gasp!) glass bottles.

To open quarts and half gallons of milk (which were delivered directly to homes, if you can believe that), one would have remove some foil and then pull a cardboard tab. Like I said: nineteenth century. (At least milk was pasteurized at that point!)

Soda and beer bottles had metal caps. They had to be pried off. (!!)

I don’t recall what the deposits were on milk bottles. But for soda and beer, consumers paid two cents extra. If and when the bottles were returned to retail stores, the two cents were refunded.

They would then be sent to the bottlers, where they would be cleaned and refilled with new product. Back to the retailers the bottles would go.

I’ll not regale you with tales about neighborhood kids scrounging for bottles and cashing them in for candy money.

However, I will tell you about one forward looking lad who took his proceeds to a local bank. He somehow managed to open a savings account in the name of The Bottle Club and deposited them.

I suppose that he’s a gajillionaire by now. The rest of us, well…….we embarked instead upon lifetimes of tooth decay and obesity and diabetes.

So whither deposit bottles today?

There’s a bill before Congress called the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act of 2020. (1) It has merely been introduced, however. With everything the legislature must handle first, it probably isn’t going anywhere during this session.

A handful of states have, however, enacted comparable laws. (2) Let’s hope that more do the same.

Someday, container deposits will again become the norm where I live. And once they do, I’ll get it right: I’ll open my own Bottle Club account.

In an offshore location, of course. ;>)