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May 19, 2007
Donald C. Gasper: State needs bottle bill to curb litter problem
This year, the Legislature failed to pass a bottle redemption bill. It would
have set up a refundable deposit on bottles so they would be worth something and
not just thrown away littering our roads, streams, even our hillsides.
If bottles are returned to redemption centers, it does not cost us anything,
and the trouble involved is just an extension of our recycling and begins to
reverse a bit the unsustainability of our throw-away society. The glass and
plastic would be remelted and reused.
As one who picks up roadside litter, I can tell you we are losing the litter
war. This legislation is badly needed. When they did this in Michigan, its
litter just disappeared. Hawaii, another beautiful state, dependent on tourism,
passed a bottle bill last year. It works. Ask you grandparents; we all did it.
The plastic bottles are a new and overwhelming load. The Container Recycling
Institute reports that 10- to 12-ounce plastic water bottles sold from 2002 to
2005 increased 900 percent -- now 19 billion units per year. Education and
penalties (fines, etc.) have not reversed the trend. We need legislative action.
The Senate leadership, however, sent the proposed bill through three
committees -- nearly an impossible hurdle. Committees have been discussing it
for three years. They know it well. It has been refined. There may have been the
will to pass it. However, three powerful senators did not want it.
Our friends (Coca-Cola, Budweiser, etc.) travel this country lobbying and
spending big money whenever and wherever a state tries to pass a progressive
bottle redemption bill. The State Senate president, majority leader and finance
chairman should be held responsible for its defeat.
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