Westport: How Many Nip Bottles Were Sold In Town Over 6 Months?

WESTPORT, CT — A law the state passed last fall requires a 5-cent surcharge on every "nip" bottle sold in Connecticut — and now, municipalities including Westport are cashing in on the money.

Empty nip bottles are everywhere: They're "strewn along the streets, sidewalks, trails and floating in our waterways," said Sen. Christine Cohen, who represents the Branford area. Cohen championed the law, which is designed to help towns clean up environmental messes.

The 5-cent surcharge is passed on to the retailer and then the consumer by alcohol wholesalers. And they, in turn, hand that money over to towns to mitigate the environmental, and aesthetic, havoc wreaked by the little bottles.

The law requires that each town use the money for environmental measures intended to reduce litter from improperly discarded nips bottles and the generated solid waste. Suggestions include hiring a recycling coordinator; installing storm drain filters designed to block solid waste and beverage container debris; buying a mechanical street sweeper, vacuum or broom that removes litter; and the like.

And this month, the payments to the towns are due.

Patch requested reports from the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection that delineate the number of nips sold, the surcharge collected and how much each of the state's 169 cities and towns are due.

Westport is owed $3,344.60 for nips sold in the city. That means the public bought 66,892 miniature alcohol bottles in Westport since the law went into effect on Oct. 1, 2021.

Once the town gets its check, it can use the money to "address an environmental concern," Cohen said.

"Whether they choose to use the monies towards clean-ups, drain covers, street sweepers or another conservation-minded initiative, the towns, their residents and our environment will be the better for it," Cohen said.