July 18, 2007
Powerful foes keep lid on bottle bill
Matthew Eisley
By weight or volume, discarded glass and plastic bottles are about half of the litter that befouls North Carolina's roadsides, sidewalks, parks and waterways.
So litter foes have long pushed for a state law requiring deposits on bottles. The idea is to create a financial incentive to return used bottles for recycling.
A new bill this year in the state legislature would put a dime's deposit on each bottle. Consumers would get their money back by taking their bottles to private "redemption centers," which then would recycle them.
Charities, adopt-a-highway groups and kids in need of spending change could raise money by collecting discarded bottles, which would further help reduce litter.
"It creates an economic incentive to recycle and to pick up roadside garbage," said its main sponsor, Sen. Doug Berger, a Youngsville Democrat and lawyer.
That might seem logical, at least in the 11 other states that have bottle deposits. But the system also would impose costs in time, effort, and money. It could depress beverage sales along the state's borders and attract bottles from other states, critics say.
The proposal has many powerful opponents -- and so far, they're winning.
The bill got uncapped Tuesday in the Senate Commerce Committee, where supporters and detractors debated its merits. But the proposal is staying on the shelf until at least next year.
"It will not be heard anymore this session, because in my opinion it would not pass," said committee Chairman R.C. Soles, a Tabor City Democrat and lawyer. "It will still be here in the short session. If there's a groundswell of support for it, we'll consider it."
Facing opposition from more than two dozen corporations and powerful lobbying interests, the bill would get nowhere near a majority of the committee's 26 members' votes, Berger said.
"I have touched no bill since I have been in the legislature that was more popular with the people -- or more despised by the opposition," he said. "The impetus has got to come from people putting pressure on their legislators."
Despite the lack of a vote, some senators expressed frustration with North Carolina's growing litter problem. Last year the state spent $16.6 million to remove 10.1 million pounds of roadside litter.
"What we're doing now is not working," Sen. Bill Purcell, a Laurinburg Democrat and retired doctor, told his colleagues.
Opponents of the bill flew in a Massachusetts consultant, who picked apart the details while assailing its premise.
Litter is a complex problem that can't be solved by recycling more bottles, said Kevin Dietly, an environmental economist.
"You could spend millions of dollars and still barely touch the problem," he told the committee. There's not a lot of bang for the bucks here. It is very expensive to put a bottle system in place. It's a foolish way to stop litter. And it is fundamentally anti-consumer."
The best way to reduce litter, he said, is to target advertisements to the young adults responsible for tossing out most of the bottles, fast-food bags and cigarette butts that pollute public spaces.
Wyatt McGhee, a retired Air Force colonel and chairman of Franklin County's Solid Waste Task Force, urged the committee to endorse the bottle deposit bill as a way to reduce litter.
"The time has come to do something about it," he said. "If we pass this legislation, we can once again become The Clean Roads State." Staff writer Matthew Eisley can be reached at 829-4538 or matthew.eisley@newsobserver.com.
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