Sometimes I feel like the super market Styrofoam bandit. When I find produce that I want to purchase and it is wrapped in plastic or Styrofoam, I take a very obvious stand. I unwrap the produce, put it in my cart and leave the wrapping. If there are any store employees about, I explain that I want less packaging, not more, and that their extraneous wrapping is now their trash problem. By taking a stand, I hope that they will think twice and not wrap that single eggplant with plastic wrap and put it on a Styrofoam tray. My mantra in this case is “Your trash, your responsibility.”

But perhaps it should be our trash is our responsibility. Our society has become a throw-away one. Products are no longer made to last, “fix it” has given way to “buy another,” and garbage simply goes away. But does it? Look around the Island, the litter is a stain on our landscape and the amount of trash that is hauled off Island is immense. Can our little Island do better? I say we can!

On Nov. 4, we have an opportunity to take a stand and vote yes on 2 to update the bottle bill. This choice is a vote for a cleaner and more beautiful Massachusetts, and an acceptance that our conveniences have associated responsibilities that we need to own up to. As an added plus, we will to turn trash into treasure, take a cradle-to-grave approach to the products we use, and reduce litter on our Island beaches, trails, business districts and neighborhoods.

In 1982, the bottle bill was enacted, placing a five-cent deposit on beer and soft drinks, which were the popular drinks of the time. Today, we have a slew of additional options for our thirst-quenching pleasure. These include bottled water, sports drinks and other specialty drinks, none of which are encumbered by that deposit. Without that deposit, those empties have no value. Include them in the bottle bill and they immediately get an upgrade. They become worth returning, and there would even be an advantage to collect the ones that end up as trash.

Yes, yes, I know that you are a great recycler at home, but so many of us are drinking these beverages on the go, at the beach, on the boat and in our cars. It is wonderful if you can bring those empties home, but many of us don’t, settling for the nearest trash can. With the bottle bill, those empties become valuable and if you don’t want the five cents, someone else does and will grab that bottle (or 20 of them) for a buck! And even better, if the bottle bill update passes, the unredeemed deposit money will go into an environmental fund and not the general fund, as it does now.

The benefits of updating the bottle bill are immense. Cities and towns will reap huge savings in waste disposal costs, an estimated $1 for every Massachusetts resident or almost $7 million per year. It will also increase recycling since current studies indicate that 80 per cent of bottles and cans with deposits on them get recycled, while only 23 per cent of containers without a deposit are recycled.

Support for the updated bottle bill is staggering. More than 130 organizations, committees and businesses are in favor, including groups like Mass Audubon, Environmental League of Massachusetts, League of Women Voters of Massachusetts, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, The Trustees of Reservations, and more than 209 cities and towns have passed resolutions in favor of it.

However, surprising as it seems, there is opposition to this ballot question. The No contingency includes beverage companies, supermarkets and others who will see increased costs when they have to take responsibility for the products they sell and will need to pay a handling fee for those redeemable bottles.

And they have the money to put up a fight. So it seems, with their millions of dollars that have gone into ads and scare tactics, public opinion has been swayed. Early public polls in August indicated more than 60 per cent support of the question. With the barrage of negative ads, that public support has diminished to around 30 per cent. Can we really afford to lose?

People won’t lose, but the environment will if this ballot question is not passed. I want to believe that we are smarter than being deceived by those ads. And I want to believe that we are people that care enough to take responsibility for our trash. But more than anything, I want to see a landscape unmarred by empty beverage bottles.

Please vote yes on 2.

Suzan Bellincampi is director of the Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary. She writes the All Outdoors column for the Gazette.