617 million bottles and cans per year are distributed and sold in the District, and we are paying for every single one of them

Councilmember Nadeau delivered remarks at a hearing of the Committee on Transportation and the Environment on legislation she introduced, B26-0058 – Recycling Refund and Litter Reduction Amendment Act of 2025, informally referred to by some as a “bottle bill.”

D.C. has a litter problem. Rivers, streets, sidewalks, alleys, yards.

Everything has a cost. Disposing of a product or its packaging has a cost. In the case of beverages with disposable containers, there’s a huge cost and it’s been paid by taxpayers. 

As Chair of the Public Works & Operations Committee, I’ve learned in great detail just how much the District has to budget to clean up litter. By some metrics, we spend more money per mile to clean our streets than any other city in the country. And 80 percent of that litter is comprised of beverage containers.

617 million bottles and cans per year are distributed and sold in the District, and we are paying for every single one of them. 

It’s no wonder the big beverage industry doesn’t want this bill. They don’t want to pay for the cost to clean up the mess they create.

They are throwing everything at the wall:

• It’ll cost consumers more for their beverages. Categorically false. They cannot point to a single study to back that up. Consumers get back every cent they pay for the deposit. 
• Fraudsters will collect empty containers in Maryland and Virginia and bring them by the truckload to DC to redeem them. Even though the legislation includes clear solutions to this issue. And, the industry is smart – they will figure out how to add UPC labels or another method to ensure there isn’t fraud because it’s in their interest to do so – the industry doesn’t want to give 10 cents back for a bottle or can that they didn’t get the deposit on.
• This is the same industry that fought off a proposed bottle bill in the 80s by scaremongering people by saying that people would get AIDS from bottle redemption. Disappointing, yes. Surprising, no.

The fact that it’s the industry itself that’s fighting this tells you everything you need to know. There are no consumer-focused groups telling us this will harm consumers, because it won’t. No good government folks are worried about fraud. Because in the 10 states with bottle bills, with more than 90 million residents – a quarter of the U.S. population, it just doesn’t happen much at all.

What does happen with bottle bills?

• More than 80% of the litter on streets, in parks, public trash cans, and our rivers disappears almost overnight.
• People who struggle to find other work find a new way to earn side income – cleaning up our public spaces in the process.
• An entire industry of small entrepreneurs appears, ready to haul away empties for businesses because there is an economic incentive for them, and because it makes the challenges of collecting and returning containers for grocery stores, small retail stores, restaurants and bars so much easier.
• Churches, high school theater clubs, and softball teams hold bottle and can drives, raising money for their organizations and making it easier for households to easily get rid of their containers, if they don’t want or need to get their deposit back for themselves.

People who have lived in states with beverage container redemption look at this debate and wonder what we are even talking about. I grew up in Michigan, which has had bottle and can deposits since 1978. It was just a part of life. We’d pay a deposit on the bottles and cans we purchased, throw the empties in a bag in the mud room, and from time to time bring them back to the grocery store and get our deposit back. 

I don’t want to dismiss the added requirements – businesses will have to adjust some aspects of how they operate. It’s why we’ve worked so hard in our bill, and now in this Committee, to make adjustments and exemptions to accommodate those realities.

I want to thank Councilmember Allen and his committee staff for their deep dive into this legislation and for the changes they have proposed. And I love them all – except one – and it’s a significant one.

There’s a provision in the legislation as we introduced it that triggers an increase in the container deposit when the redemption rate drops below the target in the law for two years in a row.

The deposit is the backbone of the whole system – it’s what incentivizes people to return their empties and “canners” to collect bottles and cans on the street and makes the entrepreneurial industry of haulers and collectors work. 

It’s almost impossible to enact an increase because legislatures are afraid to do it. In Massachusetts and New York, the deposit is just 5 cents – they’ve never been able to successfully raise it since implementation in the 1970s and 80s. Redemption rates that were over 80% have dropped to 34%. It’s not working anymore. And that’s because every time someone suggests an increase, the industry comes out swinging again and again.

We must make sure that there is a clear and evidence-based process for actually increasing that value. Otherwise, this law will die by attrition.

The bottom line is that a bottle bill will remove a significant amount of litter from our neighborhoods and parks and the Anacostia and Potomac rivers. The cost of beverages will remain the same. Fraud will be minimal, especially when the industry sets its mind to making sure of it, because they have the incentive.