The Maryland Bottle Bill Gets Two Big Endorsements!

By: Martha Ainsworth, Chair of the Maryland Sierra Club Zero Waste Team

The Maryland Bottle Bill received two key endorsements over the past two weeks, precipitated by a “Mr. Trash Wheel Dumpster Dive in Support of the Maryland Bottle Bill”, organized by the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore. Mr. Trash Wheel and his “family” of trash wheels are floating trash interceptors that have captured 2.2 million plastic bottles from the Baltimore Harbor in the past decade, in addition to other floating trash.

On November 16th, more than a hundred volunteers assembled at the Baltimore Tool Bank to sort a dumpster of Mr. Trash Wheel’s collections. They found nearly 3,000 beverage containers. Had there been a refundable deposit on them, those containers never would have made it to the Harbor! They would have been recycled and become new containers. Senate President Bill Ferguson, whose district includes the area surrounding the Harbor, enthusiastically endorsed the bill!  

Dumpster dive volunteers point to Rocky the rockfish, who holds more than 800 of the nearly 3,000 beverage containers found in Mr. Trash Wheel’s dumpster.

Dumpster dive volunteers point to Rocky the rockfish, who holds more than 800 of the nearly 3,000 beverage containers found in Mr. Trash Wheel’s dumpster.

Citing that event, last weekend the Baltimore Sun Editorial Board declared, “It’s time for Maryland to get serious about imposing a deposit on plastic bottles” to reduce plastic pollution and to protect the environment, our wildlife, and our health. They implored the members of the Maryland General Assembly to “take firmer action in the 2025 session.” You can read the editorial here

The 2025 Maryland Bottle Bill would place a small, refundable deposit on all filled and sealed metal, plastic, and glass beverage containers sold in Maryland. The deposit is an incentive to return the containers instead of trashing or littering them. It would collect 90% of the containers sold in the state and remove 3.6 billion beverage containers from the environment annually! 

This bill has momentum! You can learn more about it in this Fact Sheet. Better yet, click on this Action Alert over the holidays and send a message to your state legislators and governor to support the Maryland Bottle Bill!