Jenn Lever is CEO of Baxter Brewing Company in Lewiston. Chris Black is vice president of sales for Nappi Distributors in Gorham. Kyle Boland is general manager of Coca-Cola Beverages Northeast in South Portland.

As Maine-based beverage distributors and brewers, we’re proud participants in Maine’s
bottle bill. It’s kept billions of containers out of landfills and waterways and built a robust
redemption infrastructure across the state.

But let’s be clear: this program doesn’t run on good intentions alone. It’s expensive —
very expensive — to collect and process 850 million containers each year (more than
$70 million). For decades, the bottle bill has remained viable largely because unredeemed deposits help offset this significant cost.

A legislative proposal, LD 2141, which recently received majority approval in the Environment and Natural Resources Committee, proposes to take those unredeemed deposits away from the container redemption system.

This is not a minor administrative tweak. It is a fundamental restructuring that would shift millions of dollars in costs directly onto local beverage businesses — breweries,
family-owned distributors and the very companies that have been keeping the bottle bill
functioning for almost 50 years.

We support Maine’s bottle bill, but it must be financially sustainable. Opponents of our position often frame the unredeemed deposits as a “windfall.” For those of us who move the bottles, pay the handling fees, pay the people, maintain the trucks, purchase the baling equipment and navigate the logistical challenges of this program every day, the reality is simple: unredeemed deposits are not a windfall — they are a critical financial tool needed to keep Maine’s recycling system operating.

Every nickel that is unredeemed helps offset these costs and, in fact, is put back into
the system. Remove or redirect this funding stream, and you don’t magically eliminate
the costs. You simply shift them onto local businesses already dealing with thin margins
and rising costs in an unsettled economic environment.

Maine businesses will feel the greatest impact. We remain deeply committed to our
employees and the communities we serve, but imposing millions of dollars in new costs
will inevitably force difficult decisions — fewer product offerings, reduced investment in
local communities and, for some, the possibility of closing their doors.

The result would be fewer local options on store shelves, less competition in the
marketplace and higher prices for consumers at a time when the cost of living
continues to rise.

A sustainable bottle bill requires collaboration, not cost-shifting. We have led the effort
to reform this program. Three years ago, we presented the Legislature with a proposal to create a stewardship organization to end the practice of sorting beverage containers by brand and, instead, sort them by material. This won’t be easy, but it will make the system more efficient and less expensive for everyone.

The Legislature unanimously approved our idea but required that local beverage distributors pay an additional $2.3 million annually — $700,000 for the bags that redemption centers use; $600,000 to the DEP for its oversight; $500,000 for technology improvements; and $500,000 for refillable container programs.

In return, the Legislature committed the unredeemed deposits would continue to be used as an offset against handling fees and processing costs while also driving innovation forward — as has been the case for more than four decades. Now some legislators want to go back on that promise.

LD 2141 destabilizes a self-contained system that is already expensive and upends a
financial structure that has worked for decades. Maine’s bottle bill succeeds because
every participant — brewers, distributors, redemption centers, haulers and
consumers — plays a role. Taking unredeemed deposits out of the system affects the
businesses that shoulder the operational burden and will only make it more expensive
and inefficient.

Reform should make the bottle bill stronger, not hobble the partnership that sustains it.
We urge lawmakers to keep the unredeemed deposits in the bottle bill, and work with —
not against — the people who make it work every day.