Send A Message To Support The Bottle Bill

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When: Monday, April 1 at 3 p.m.
Where: Room 313 – State House
Why: Let the legislature know you support a Bottle Bill that can make our roads cleaner and safer, reduce litter and marine debris, increase recycling rates, protect our environment and natural resources, and save taxpayers money.

There are three ways you can submit testimony! Pick the option that works best for you!

  1. Join Clean Water Action and others  in person at the State House (Room 313) on Monday, April 1st, at 3pm!
  2. Click and send prewritten testimony! It’s not as effective as a personalized note, but it gets the job done!
  3. Or, write your personal written testimony and send by email to Michael Hogan at mhogan@rilegislature.gov and Stephanie Gemski at sgemski@rilegislature.gov anytime before noon on the day of the hearing.

If you pick option 3, a personal email, please follow the instructions below.

  • Send your own message or feel free to use all or parts of the below email.
  • It is recommended to attach your written testimony in PDF format, if you can.
  • Include your name and address in the email and explain that you are in favor of a Bottle Bill and why.

Sample email to send to mhogan@rilegislature.gov and sgemski@rilegislature.gov

Subject: Public testimony to the Plastic Bottle Waste Study Commission
Include in the body of email:
I am for a Bottle Bill
Your name
Your home address including town and state

Dear Honorable Members of the Plastic Bottle Waste Study Commission:

Thank you so much for taking the time over the past months to examine the possibility of a bottle bill for Rhode Island. My hope is that, after months of testimony from experts and interested parties, the result of this study commission will be legislation creating a strong bottle bill for Rhode Island.

It’s even clearer than before that a bottle bill is the best policy option for reducing litter and improving recycling. Despite decades of anti-littering efforts and an increase in access to single-stream recycling in the state, litter and marine debris continue to be a persistent and growing environmental problem, both along the shore and in our inland communities. For example, the floor of Narragansett Bay now contains an estimated 1000 tons of microplastics, and URI researchers believe that build-up has occurred in just the last two decades.

Bottle bills work. States with bottle bills in place have less litter and an increased rate of recycling. The containers collected in a bottle bill system are cleaner and better sorted than those collected by curbside recycling, so they are more likely to be recycled back into new beverage containers.

Retailers and beverage companies need to have some shared responsibility in being part of the solution to litter and waste, and we can create a bottle bill that works for our unique state. There are good examples from other states on how to craft a system that is convenient for consumers while minimizing impacts on retailers. A strong bottle bill will offer convenient return options for consumers, cover a wide range of beverage containers, have at least a 10 cent deposit on each bottle, and reinvest unclaimed deposits back into the system.

Thank you so much for considering my written testimony. I’m proud to register my support for a RI bottle bill!

Sincerely,

Your name

Thanks to Clean Water Action for links and most of the text in this post.