WASTE NEWS

Message in a Bottle

Bottle bills aren't just fighting an uphill battle these days. It's a little more like scaling Mount Everest.

The latest fights took place in Kentucky and Georgia. In both cases, the bills went down to defeat with the help of some very well-heeled lobbyists, mostlv representing the beverage and retail industries.

Those 1998 losses were nothing new for bottle bill advocates. Since the advent of curbside recycling programs, virtually all of the 2,000 bottle bills introduced nationwide have failed.

The beverage industry argues that bottle bills cost a lot of money for only a modest increase in the recycling rate. Of course, beveragemakers see those added costs as a serious threat to their profits, and so they are willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to fight it.

Bottle deposit advocates point to greatly higher rates of bottle recycling in places where bottle bills are in force. But given bottle bills' lack of success, that argument hasn't been enough. Advocates need to find the right people to persuade.

We hate to see any issue win largely because one side has a lotmore money than another. That's not very fair, although it is very much politics.

As with recycling in general, it comes down to a question of how much people are willing to pay for it. Clearly, most people have their limits. But we'd prefer to see that issue resolved on an at least somewhat level playing field.

Reprinted with permission of Crain Communications, Inc.

Waste News, November 16,1998