This is from my friend Phil Sego:
Dear Friends,
I’m asking my friends, neighbors, allies, and family to please vote YES on ballot question 2, update the bottle bill. If you care about litter, the environment, and saving money for our cities and towns, I urge you to join me in supporting this important ballot measure.
As you probably know, I’ve been working on updating the state’s bottle deposit law for the past 10 years. After watching it pass in the State Senate repeatedly, but ignored in the House, we decided we had no alternative but to put this to the voters. While we knew the out-of-state big beverage companies were going to oppose us, we were not prepared for their $9 million onslaught of disinformation.
The facts are clear:
80% of bottles that have nickel deposits are recycled. In sharp contrast, only 23% of non-deposit bottles are recycled, the rest become litter or trash. While curbside recycling is great, it’s ineffective against beverages consumed on the go, like the vast majority of the bottles of water, juice, and flavored teas are.
That small nickel deposit is enough to stop litter. Bottle litter is plaguing our parks, ballfields, streets, and beaches. And the vast majority of this litter is non-deposit bottles. We’ll keep plastics out of our rivers, and from being washed into the ocean.
The bottle bill will save money for our cities and towns. The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) estimates that we’ll save up to $7 million a year on picking up all this litter and collection all this trash. And we’ll have cleaner parks, streets, and beaches.
It’s also a fact that our cities and towns can’t keep up with the enormous litter and waste problem. But there’s an easy solution: add these beverages to the bottle bill. By placing that small nickel deposit on them, we’ll keep over 1¼ Billion bottles a year out of the landfills.
Unfortunately, this common-sense proposal has been under siege, and is being VASTLY outspent by out-of-state big beverage companies and big supermarket chains. Together, they have poured over $9 million into buying this election, more than all the other ballot questions combined, even more than Coakley and Baker combined. As a result of their deceptive TV and radio ads, their false claims have been repeatedly exposed by investigative reporters. The “no” side’s credibility has been destroyed. You can read more about this here.
Sincerely,
— Phil Sego
PS: The Yes On 2 campaign urgently needs help between now and Election Day, phoning, canvassing, and working at the polls, holding signs. You can visit http://j.mp/q2-help if you can help. There’s a lot more information at www.yeson2ma.org
Would you please consider resending this to your personal lists?
