Bigger Better Bottle Bill

By Andrew Ehinger

    I'll admit it--I do return my soda bottles.

    Every time I finish a bottle of soda I wash it out and then throw it into a bag that I'll eventually take back to the store. It's not a huge amount of money, but it's the principal. I paid the deposit--I want it back. I also take the same care of bottles of non-carbonated beverages. However, they don't go in the same bag. They get taken out to the regular recycling bin. But if Governor Patterson has his way my bottle deposit bag may be getting a little bigger.

    The Bigger Better Bottle Bill would add a 5 cent deposit on non-carbonated beverage containers. That means water bottles, and sport drink bottles would now get a deposit. Governor Patterson is pushing for the legislation in his new budget feeling it would help clean up the environment and add needed money to state coffers.

    Many people don't realize this, but not everybody returns the bottles and cans that have a deposit. Those nickels - millions of dollars worth - went unclaimed (sort of). You see, wholesalers who collect the 5 cent deposits would keep those extra nickels if people didn't return all of the bottles and cans. Off the bat you're probably thinking that the wholesalers are getting a pretty sweet deal but they tell a different story.

    Clare Rose inc. is the islands main wholesaler for Budweiser in addition to lots of other beverages. For more than a quarter century the company has been collecting and recycling its containers after people redeem them for the nickel deposit. But Clare Rose and other wholesalers say it costs more than a nickle to collect, sort and transport the recycled containers. In fact ,they say it costs about 7-to-8 cents per container. That means they are losing money right off the bat when they recycle the container. Even selling the glass, plastic, aluminum and cardboard as a raw material doesn't really help. So, how do they stay in business? Those unclaimed nickles. But to help with environmental projects and balance the budget, Governor Patterson, in his Bigger Better Bottle Bill, wants those nickles. You can imagine that's not making wholesalers happy.

     Environmentalist say the Bigger Better Bottle Bill will encourage more people to recycle containers which are ending up as trash or clogging landfills. On the surface that sounds great - but if the state takes those unclaimed nickles from the wholesalers the industry says it will have to make up the money for recycling somewhere else.. You can guess where that's going to come from - you and I. Wholesaler's say they'll have to tack on a couple dollars to a case of beverages to pay for the recycling. 

    Hey, it's important to keep the environment clean, and most would say recycling is a good thing.  The main question here is what should happen to the unclaimed nickles.  Here are our options: Do we help the state's fiscal crisis with the millions in unclaimed nickles and then pay higher beverage prices because of recycling costs, or do we leave the system as it is right now, or finally do we add a deposit on non-carbonated beverages and let wholesalers keep the unclaimed nickles. The choice is yours.

Comments

[John]

Oh, great. Another fee from our esteemed Governor. Perhaps next week, he'll go door to door and just ask us to hand over any wallets and valuables we have sitting around.

Besides, waste disposal has always been messed up. It costs more to recycle than find raw material, which means that we're doing it wrong. The deposit system is just social engineering, rather than actually helping anything (imagine if your favorite restaurant charged you for plates, but refunded them if you bussed your own table). And we throw things in compactors, knowing full well that the trash is just going to expand again in the landfill.

Instead of seeing how much more money can be squeezed from us (since everybody involved has made it quite clear that this is about getting more deposit money to lapse), maybe someone "upstream" should look into better ways of acquiring raw materials, be they recycled or fresh.

Not that it matters much to me, except on principle. I don't drink anything that's considered deposit-worthy.

[Robert Gudger]

Andrew
I could never figure out why we would pay a deposit on one type of beverage and not on another, even if they came in the same exact type of container.

Personally, I feel 5 cents is not enough of an incentive for most people. I wish they would raise it to 25 cents and apply it to all types of beverages regardless wether or not they are carbonated. Maybe they could split the money from unreturned containers between the state and wholesaler.
Just and idea....

On Wednesdays, I look down my block in Medford and see very few people who put out their recycle cans or newspapers. I know these people are just including recyclables in with their regular garbage....what a shame.
In NYC, sanitation officers can write a summons to the building owner if they find recyclables in their regular garbage. I bet you could pay that persons salary and then some, with the revenue they would bring in...Just an idea.

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