Vermont put in place its bottle redemption act in 1973, and proponents believe it’s time to modernize the law. The House Ways & Means Committee (HW&M) will finalize its work on S.158, the bottle deposit expansion legislation. The House Natural Resources Committee passed the bill on March 1, 2021. The bill would expand Vermont’s bottle deposit law to more “recyclable type materials” into the program (more plastic bottles and glass wine bottles), increases the 5-cent deposit amount on the containers, and would increase the fee paid to the redemption centers from 4-cents to 5-cents. The bill also authorizes the creation of a Producer Responsibility Organization (PRO) stewardship program, which would be set up by the manufacturers with approval of the legislature and requires all manufacturers to participate in the PRO. The House Ways & Means Committee intends to pass this bill out of committee on March 14, 2023.
