Sustainable Pinehills is a group of environmentally conscious volunteers living in the Pinehills community. We’ve noticed that many residents of Plymouth make the effort to recycle but may not be aware that there is an even better alternative to traditional recycling of your bottles and cans in the bins offered by trash pickup companies.
In fact, you can redeem bottles, cans and containers marked with a MA label for cash, not only helping improve the environment but doing your part to support collection services that keep the value in the hands of residents and local businesses. One of the most active in our community is Bradford’s Package Store, which we support because it accepts all types of containers whether or not they sell the product. Over the last 30 years, it has become a major center for recycling vast quantities of aluminum, glass, and even plastic.
“Redemption centers play a critical role in our efforts to move toward a circular economy,” says Ken Stone, chair of Plymouth’s Recycling Committee. “This is especially so for glass and aluminum containers. Glass and aluminum can be recycled almost indefinitely. Reusing aluminum saves approximately 95 percent of the energy needed to make it from raw material. Recycling glass saves about one-third of the energy needed to make new bottles, but recycling significantly reduces, and can even eliminate, the use of newly mined minerals, including sand.”
Even single-use plastic water bottles can be redeemed. The environmental benefits are not as great, but it is better to turn them in so they can be reused to make synthetic fibers, plastic lumber and insulation rather than ending up in landfills.
Residents should also support the most recent iteration of the expanded bottle bill, which is once again stalled on Beacon Hill. Among other things, this version would increase the fee paid to redemption centers, which have not received an increase in decades, and encourage more centers to accept all kinds of bottles and cans, not just the ones they sell themselves.
– Kathryn Gloster
Gloster is a member of Sustainable Pinehills.