Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont’s proposal would generate $4.9 million in revenue next fiscal year and $6.6 million in 2020-21, according to his budget.
Carroll Hughes, president, Connecticut Package Store Association, blasted the proposal as being more expensive, environmentally more degrading, and disrupting the peoples’ sense of recycling.
“(Recycling is) already happening, and it’s happening in a much more efficient way than if we were to put a deposit on it,” he said. The bottles can currently be put into residential recycling bins. The proposal would encourage customers to return the bottles to package stores, which would then have to store them and have them delivered to a processing facility.
The proposal would also apply to “nip” bottles, except at a 5-cents-a-bottle rate.
While package store operators oppose the measure, some municipalities support the deposit on nips, saying it would help reduce bottles that currently litter parks.
One winery owner, Joe Gouveia, of Gouveia Vineyards in Wallingford, said it the deposit is approved, customers should be able to refill their wine bottles at wineries.
The budget proposal also reduces the excise tax on craft breweries by 50%. It projects a $100,000 loss in revenue for the state.