Bottle Bill Common Ground: Inclusive Circular System

From Reloop:

The driving force behind deposit return systems (DRSs) is the concept of a circular economy — which eliminates waste and pollution; circulates products and materials through reuse, repair, or remanufacture; and regenerates and enhances nature. 

That’s not what happens now with most beverage containers in the U.S. At least $5.1 billion in valuable and reclaimable beverage containers — glass, metal, and plastic — are lost to litter, incinerators, and landfills each year. That amounts to 140 billion individual containers wasted. No wonder beverage containers are the number-one item littering our coastal areas.

Despite their ready recyclability, curbside recycling is falling short in this regard. When recycled in the single-stream system that U.S. municipalities have largely adopted, plastic beverage containers are considered "contaminated" by other product packaging and are no longer food-grade quality. In contrast, a DRS enables a circular system, in which bottles and cans are recycled to become bottles and cans once again.