Hutzell: Maryland knows bottle bills work. Why are we still pretending they’re radical?

D.C. may be about to pass Maryland on the way to cleaning up plastic pollution in the Chesapeake Bay.

The D.C. Council will vote this fall to establish the nation’s first bottle deposit law in more than 25 years, creating a 10-cent payback for recycling plastic, glass and aluminum containers.

And all those empty water, soda and other drink bottles make up 80% of plastic pollution not only around the bay but worldwide.

So, why couldn’t a bottle bill even get a committee vote this year in the Maryland General Assembly?

“We know, based on evidence in other states and countries around the world, that a bottle bill is the most effective way — an evidence‑based way — to really reduce beverage container litter,” said Kelly Doordan, executive director of Trash Free Maryland.

Bottles clogging the Chesapeake break down into flakes, filaments and powder that seep into every part of the ecosystem. You can’t remove the plastic, and all the cleanups in the world won’t stop more from coming.

The only solution is to slow or end the river of plastic.

Maryland is taking a step toward that. The Extended Producer Responsibility program aims to force thousands of companies in the state to put less plastic into the environment.

Circular Action Alliance, a coalition of manufacturers, distributors and retailers, must submit a plan to the Maryland Department of the Environment to cut plastic and other container trash 50% by 2032 — and spell out how it will pay for the program.

Targeting the 5.5 million plastic bottles Maryland residents use every year is one of the most effective tools available, but lawmakers left a deposit system behind when they created the program in 2025.

But every year a “bottle bill” gets introduced in Annapolis, it fails to pass.

“Some stakeholders and industry groups incorrectly framed the bottle bill as competing or a duplicate policy rather than a complementary one,” said state Sen. Benjamin Brooks, who has sponsored the bill twice.

“Opponents sort of use misleading rhetoric to label the refund deposit as a tax and then that raises concerns.”

Anyone who makes money from plastic bottles sees the idea as just too expensive, too open to fraud — too radical for Maryland.

Even the Maryland Association of Counties opposed it, worried about the financial impact on its members’ local curbside recycling programs.

There is a legitimate worry that adding a bottle deposit while the state works through extended recycling would overwhelm both businesses and the state’s ability to make either work well.

“The state should allow that framework to be implemented and evaluated before layering on additional mandates that raise costs, strain retailers, and disproportionately impact vulnerable communities,” Maryland Chamber of Commerce lobbyist Hannah Allen testified.

Supporters point to evidence that the public supports the idea — 90% are in favor, according to a Gonzales Research poll commissioned by the Maryland Sierra Club.

A Maryland bottle deposit program would look like this:

A dedicated nonprofit would set up “reverse vending” machines at places where plastic bottles are sold. Inserting a small container would get you a dime. A larger one would pay 15 cents.

The nonprofit would pick up the containers, then sort and sell them to recyclers. The deposit would increase the cost of a bottle of water, but the money would create a self-sufficient loop.

“Right now, we’re only capturing probably less than 25% of the plastics that are in beverage containers,” said Brooks, a Baltimore County Democrat.

Studies in 10 states with deposit laws show they cut plastic bottle pollution up to 80%. People turn in their own bottles, and some collect others’ containers for cash.

Arguments against the bill in Annapolis were the same ones that have blocked every attempt to create a new deposit law in the U.S. since Hawaii adopted theirs in 2002.

“The biggest barrier is that the manufacturers of those products, right now, all of their waste is handled on the public dime,” said Julie Lawson, a former executive director of Trash Free Maryland. “All of that waste management is handled through taxpayers.”

Lawson now works for city government in D.C., where proponents are on the cusp of getting a deposit program approved.

“Once this takes effect, we will go out and see fewer bottles floating down the Anacostia River, or in our waterways, or along our sidewalks and roads,” said D.C. Council member Charles Allen, chair of the transformation and environment committee.

D.C., like many jurisdictions in Maryland, has already enacted a plastic bag ban.

“We’ve already seen it work,” Allen said.

Consensus was the key. Eleven of the 13 members co-sponsored the legislation introduced by council member Brianne K. Nadeau.

Allen’s committee spent months discussing the pros and cons — including one 11-hour public hearing in July. The law would block people from gaming the system by collecting large quantities of bottles or by coming from surrounding states.

“We tried to take legitimate concerns that people brought, work through the legislation and policy ideas to help address them,” Allen said.

The key to the bill’s chances next year will be a state study of how it would work, what it would cost and how it would fit into the extended recycling program.

Del. Marc Korman, chair of the House Environment and Transportation Committee, won approval of the study even as the bottle bill died.

He sees one more element that has to change for a bottle deposit to pass.

“Historically there was not a lot of love in Annapolis for some of the behavioral things that I think there’s probably more acceptance of now,” Korman said. “A few years ago, there was difficulty passing a ‘request‑a‑plastic‑straw’ bill — I think that would be more tolerable now.”

Brooks will resubmit the legislation next year, and a House bill is expected, too.

If Maryland and D.C. both adopt deposit laws, they could take effect by 2029 — a giant step for the Chesapeake Bay.