My local grocery store sells one brand of local milk, produced by South Mountain Creamery in Middletown, Maryland. It comes in a thick, glass bottle that evokes a simpler time when milkmen delivered crates to your front door and whisked away last week’s empty bottles. The price—$5.61 per half-gallon, last I checked—is not outrageously steep in an era of inflated grocery prices. However, that sturdy, attractive glass bottle comes with an extra price tag: a $3 bottle deposit, irredeemable within the District of Columbia.[1]

Last year, I wrote a short article about Washington, D.C.’s failure to recycle glass waste.[2] I observed that despite Zero Waste DC—an effort to achieve 80% waste diversion by 2032—the District has largely failed to recycle glass waste in any meaningful way.[3] Since then, Zero Waste DC has pushed its target year back to 2040 while outlining, in greater detail, a plan to reduce waste.[4] Meanwhile, there is another promising development on the horizon.

On January 16, 2025, Councilmember Brianne K. Nadeau proposed the Recycling, Refund, and Litter Reduction Amendment Act of 2025 (“Bottle Bill”), which would place a $0.10 deposit on beverage containers sold within the District.[5] In promoting the legislation, Nadeau and her allies have emphasized tangible environmental harms caused by the District’s failure to recycle beverage containers—namely, the accumulation of waste in the Anacostia River.[6] According to Nadeau, plastic bottles account for 60% of waste retrieved from the Anacostia River.[7] The proposed legislation promises to mitigate glass waste as well, reducing burdens on landfills and the local environment. The program would begin in 2028 and would immediately aim for a 70% recycling rate.[8]

The Bottle Bill will inevitably face resistance from the beverage lobby. The beverage industry wields immense political and economic power and has historically utilized its resources to oppose similar legislation, which they regard as an inconvenient tax.[9] Even if the Bottle Bill does make it through City Council, it will face the scrutiny of a Republican Congress that is hostile to environmental regulation and distrustful of local autonomy. Congress exercises functional veto power over D.C. law,[10] and Republican lawmakers have recently sought to curb local environmental law through an appropriations provision that would block the District from enforcing a zero-emissions vehicle regulation.[11] It is not hard to imagine a similar attempt to thwart local governance in the event that D.C. passes the Bottle Bill.

Nevertheless, it is encouraging that D.C.’s lawmakers are actively looking for solutions. And it is not just D.C.—Maryland is also considering a Bottle Bill.[12] Of course, if the bill survives both City Council and Congress, there will be immense logistical challenges. Redemption centers will need to be numerous enough to ensure accessibility across the District, and residents will need to buy in. Concerns regarding the long-term effects on small stores will need to be addressed.[13] However, having grown up in Maine—a state that has had a successful bottle-deposit system since 1978[14]— I believe that the Bottle Bill would have a positive impact.

 

 

[1] Or, for that matter, within Maryland. It appears that the only way for purchasers to recoup their $3 is to return the bottle to the creamery itself. FAQ, South Mountain Creamery, https://southmountaincreamery.com/faqs/ (last visited Feb. 25, 2025).

[2] Nicholas Merrill, D.C.’s Broken Glass, The Georgetown Environmental Law Review (Feb. 15, 2024), https://www.law.georgetown.edu/environmental-law-review/blog/d-c-s-broken-glass/.

[3] Id.

[4] Megan Quinn, D.C. updates strategy to reach ‘zero waste’ by 2040, including many policy proposals, Waste Dive (Feb. 22, 2024), https://www.wastedive.com/news/dc-zero-waste-plan-bowser-2040-compost-commercial-collection/708214/.

[5] Mark Seagraves, DC considers 10-cent bottle and can deposit to cut littering, NBC Washington, https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/dc-considers-10-cent-deposit-on-bottled-canned-beverages-to-reduce-littering/3816522/.

[6] Councilmembers Announce D.C.’s Bottle Bill, Office of Brianne K. Nadeau (Jan. 16, 2025), https://brianneknadeau.com/councilmembers-announce-major-environmental-legislation/.

[7] Id.

[8] Megan Quinn, D.C.’s proposed bottle bill aims to tackle high-profile pollution in Anacostia River, Waste Dive (Jan. 27, 2025), https://www.wastedive.com/news/washington-dc-bottle-bill-environmental-justice-river-pollution/738357/.

[9] Michael Corkery, Beverage Companies Embrace Recycling, Until It Costs Them, The New York Times (Jul. 5, 2019), https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/04/business/plastic-recycling-bottle-bills.html.

[10] District of Columbia Home Rule Act, PL 93–198, § 601, 87 Stat 774, 813 (1973).

[11] Josie Reich, Here Are All the Ways a New House GOP Bill Tells DC What to Do, The Washingtonian (Jun. 5, 2024), https://www.washingtonian.com/2024/06/05/here-are-all-the-ways-a-new-house-gop-bill-tells-dc-what-to-do/.

[12] David Collins, ‘A moral imperative’: Supporters call for passing of Bottle Bill to encourage recycling habits, WBALTV (Feb. 14, 2025), https://www.wbaltv.com/article/bottle-bill-supporters-encourage-recycling-habits/63800717.

[13] See, e.g., Gwen Ifill, BOTTLE FEUD TAPS CHURCHES, The Washington Post (July 5, 1987), https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1987/07/06/bottle-feud-taps-churches/9be0835f-dbd9-4258-8bd6-0de98b90e940/.

[14] Maine’s Bottle Bill, National Resources Defense Council of Maine, https://www.nrcm.org/programs/sustainability/recycling-product-stewardship/maines-bottle-bill/ (last visited Feb. 25, 2025).