Newton Mayor: Nips Bottles Are Everywhere

Nips bottles are everywhere in Newton — along the Charles River, scattered throughout green spaces and littering village centers, Mayor Ruthanne Fuller told state lawmakers last month as she pressed them to support a "better bottle bill."

"Across the commonwealth, we're finding those nip bottles kind of everywhere," Fuller said in her testimony on legislation (H 3289/S 2149) from Rep. Marjorie Decker and Sen. Cindy Creem. The mayor added, "I know this can be complicated, I know it can be political. But this bottle bill brings us up to best practices. We'd love to have you move it forward. It'd be a big help here locally in Newton, and I know in so many other cities and towns."

The Decker/Creem bill would expand the state's bottle redemption law that imposes a refundable surcharge on the purchase of many bottled or canned beverages to include "any drinkable liquid intended for human oral consumption."

The "better bottle bill," as supporters have called it, would double the bottle deposit to 10 cents and bring small "nips" bottles of liquor into the program.

Fuller said the Newton City Council, like other local governing bodies around the state, has tried to address the pollution problem on its own but that a statewide effort is due.

Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll threw her support behind the bottle bill refresh Tuesday when she helped launch a public campaign to build support for the Decker/Creem bill with MASSPIRG.

Meanwhile, the Mass. Package Store Association supports legislation (H 3284) to expand the state's bottle recycling incentive program in a different way — one "that, in our opinion, many retailers can support and help make actually work in the state," Executive Director Rob Mellion said.

"It addresses some core issues that are important to them, but it incentivizes, as well, people to engage in picking up materials all across the state," he said, adding that his organization regularly sponsors bottle pick-ups in cities and towns around the state, including Newton.

In 2014, Massachusetts voters rejected a ballot question expanding the bottle bill, with 26 percent voting in favor and 71 percent against the initiative petition.