Bottle bill bottled up

Would you jump on it, recognizing those bottles as an environmental scourge? Or would you sit on your hands and let the plastic pile up?

Guess which option our legislators have chosen - for the last 16 years.

That’s how long people have been trying to expand the state’s bottle bill - the law that puts a refundable nickel deposit on some drink containers to encourage consumers to return them rather than toss them in the trash. That 1982 law has a huge loophole: It covers carbonated beverages, but not bottled water, sports drinks, or teas. Those drinks have grown wildly in popularity in the past 25 years, and now make up a whopping 1.3 billion of the 3.5 billion containers sold in Massachusetts each year. Even the best-case estimate suggests that two-thirds of them are being tossed out instead of recycled right now. The recycling rate may even be as low as 12 percent. That means about a billion plastic containers -- enough bottles to fill Fenway Park, according to a Sierra Club estimate -- are going into state landfills every year.

We know the bottle bill works. The containers it covers are redeemed and recycled at a rate of about 68 percent. Still more are recycled by consumers who opt not to reclaim their nickels. In those cases, the deposits, around $35 million a year, go to the state. Extending the law to cover water and sports drinks would mean that instead of clogging up landfills forever, most of the bottles they come in, made almost entirely from petroleum, would be re-used -- turned into textiles like carpets, or the fleece manufactured in Lawrence by Polartec.

What's not to love about this idea?

Plenty, if you happen to be in the beverage industry, and have the ear of the Legislature.

The drink industry has always disliked the bottle bill because it forces bottlers to pay some of the freight. Currently, they pay 2.25 cents in recovery costs for every redeemed soda bottle. Expanding the bottle bill would make them responsible for a billion more bottles annually, and raise their recovery cost to 3.25 cents a bottle to take account of inflation. Some retailers balk because they say higher redemption rates will cost them more, too, and they might have to raise their prices to pay for it. Massachusetts Food Association president Christopher Flynn says the expansion could cost consumers an extra 5 cents per bottle on top of the deposit: His opponents scoff at that figure, and say smaller retailers would not have to accept empties under the proposed expansion.

“We should be going in the other direction,’’ says Flynn. “We should be phasing out the bottle law and making municipal recycling programs more successful.’’

That’s bosh. Why should we choose between redemption programs and curbside recycling? Especially since the latter does almost nothing to get at the bottles people buy when they’re away from home?

Now, I know some of you are shaking your heads here. “I already pay enough for my lemongrass superwater,’’ you’re saying. “Why should I pay a nickel more?’’

Well, first, all you have to do is redeem the bottle and you get that nickel back. But more importantly, you’re already paying more now. You’re paying for your city or town to pick up those bottles. Putting deposits on them will save between $4 million and $7 million a year in municipal trash costs, according to Department of Environmental Protection estimates. And under an expanded law, unclaimed deposits will send another $20 million to the state to help local governments with recycling and clean water programs. And you’re already paying in a more cosmic way: Clogging landfills with fossil fuel products that swallow precious space and last forever costs us enormously. Undoing the mess we make of the planet doesn’t come for free.

On Oct. 7, yet another proposal to expand the bottle bill will get a hearing at the State House. The governor and some far-sighted legislators support it. After 16 years, it’s high time the rest of our so-called leaders on Beacon Hill got off their hands.

Yvonne Abraham is a Globe columnist. Her e-mail address is abraham@globe.com

Clarification: This column was modified to include more information regarding the bottle bill.