The bill reverses a little-known provision contained in the state’s 1982 Bottle Bill that prohibits the sale of metal beverage containers that have detachable caps.
Designed to discourage the sale of cans that used detachable pulltabs, the law also technically prohibited the sale of aluminium bottles with crown caps or screw caps.
Aluminium bottles have been sold in New York, as in the rest of the country, for almost a decade, as the provision’s catch-all effect went unnoticed.
Representatives of MillerCoors earlier this year notified New York legislators of the 1982 bill’s unintended effect, and state Senator Mark Grisanti subsequently introduced legislation to formally exempt aluminum bottles from the 1982 bill’s language with regard to detachable caps.
Aluminum bottles were first introduced in the US in 2001. Available both as an impact extruded bottle with crown cap and as a drawn wall ironed can with screw cap, the containers have since been used to package everything from soda to juice, beer and wine.