2024 Legislative Session: Maryland Bottle Bills & Producer Responsibility
Maryland Legislative Session
- 2024 -
Maryland Legislative Session - 2024 -
Maryland Legislative Session
- 2024 -
Maryland Legislative Session - 2024 -
With work from the 2023 Extended Producer Responsibility for Packaging legislation underway, we did not expect big things in the trash world during the 2024 General Assembly Session. Systemic change can be a long game.
In 2023, Trash Free Maryland navigated an eventful legislative session, making significant strides towards reducing packaging waste and litter. Our Coalition successfully pushed for this new systemic policy to reduce packaging trash and litter aimed at tackling the root of the issue: packaging waste, which comprises nearly one third of our waste stream.
Our Coalition though was undeterred. An energetic and synergistic movement around a “bottle bill" emerged thanks to great work by Coalition partners Maryland Sierra Club, the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore, and the Anacostia Watershed Society among others.
This initiative gained momentum with a virtual rally attracting hundreds of participants. The informative hearings highlighted the 80% recycling rate, and that got everyone’s attention!
However, as watchers of bottle bills know, ten states have beverage deposit return systems that work really well, but no new laws like this have been passed in twenty years.
As we shift our focus towards the upcoming year, our attention remains on the broader producer responsibility for packaging program. The beginning stages are already underway.
The 2023 EPR legislation required a comprehensive “needs assessment” to evaluate existing waste and recycling infrastructure. This is the first step the other four states are taking too. The bill also created an Advisory Council to develop recommendations for the Governor and General Assembly this coming December outlining a full producer responsibility program. The full list of members of the council can be found here.
As consumers, we do our best to recycle, but by prioritizing reducing packaging, the first of those all important Rs we all learned long ago, we aim to enact lasting change at the systemic level.
We are following the work in the four other states with EPR programs closely and analyzing best approaches. Complex undertakings like this are why we exist. We want to see the change we need!
