Massachusetts can solve a litter problem by adopting Connecticut’s approach (Editorial)

A nickel for every returned “nip” bottle. That’s the gist of a program in the Constitution State yielding dividends for cities and towns and reducing litter.

Connecticut’s “nickel-per-nip” program is worth implementing in Massachusetts.

The two-year-old program has generated $8.9 million for municipalities that sell nips. Under that state’s law, passed in 2021, a nickel surcharge is added to the cost of each 50-milliliter nip when sold. During each subsequent April and October, each municipality gets the 5 cents back from the state for each bottle returned.

In Hartford, for example, from Oct. 1, 2022, to March 31, 2023, the city sold 1.6 million nip bottles; this year, it got back $87,423, while taking in $295,607 in total since the law went into effect. The town of South Windsor is using its funding to help pay for recycling coordinators.

Statewide, Connecticut sold 47.3 million nips, returning $2.4 million to cities and towns this year, and giving back $9 million since the program began. People involved hail it as a national model.

Anyone who walks, runs or bikes in the commonwealth, or who performs litter patrol in their neighborhood, knows how pervasive discarded nip bottles are. To those throwing them away, we say: Come on. Have a heart.

Their presence isn’t just an eyesore. A lot of these bottles will find their way to moving water, which will eventually put many in our oceans and on our beaches.

About 68,000 nips are sold daily in the Bay State, with about 25 million sold annually, according to estimates in a CommonWealth Beacon report. Were the state to pass a mini-bottle bill to address the nip problem, it would mean more than a million dollars going back to Massachusetts’ cities and towns to boost recycling and sustainability efforts. It also would mean considerably cleaner roadsides.

Bans on the bottles have been considered in Springfield, Chicopee and Ware, and already have been implemented in Chelsea, Falmouth, Mashpee, Nantucket, Newton and Wareham, according to Boston.com. Its report earlier this year noted that in Chelsea, alcohol-related arrests and hospitalizations plummeted after the city outlawed nips.

The convenience of nips cannot be denied — especially for those who want to conceal their drinking — but that’s not enough to endure the blight they leave.

It’s time to end the nip problem in Massachusetts. We ask legislators to follow Connecticut’s lead and advance a nickel-for-a-nip bill here, so we can reap the benefits of cleaner streets.