October 12, 2007

Editorial

This task force may be lacking

Governor Kulongoski has appointed the members of a task force to consider ways to improve Oregon’s bottle bill. Among the people not represented are those kinds of consumers whose only connection with the bottle return law is that they pay the deposits and return the containers — or don’t.

The chairman of the task force is a financial adviser. The other members are experts in recycling or the soft drink and container industries. There also are a couple of legislators.

From a practical standpoint, it would have been nice to add a single homemaker with two kids who juggles her budget and needs the refunds, somebody whom the Oregon system forces to stand in line at recycling machines in sometimes less than ideal conditions.

It might have been useful to include one of the Oregon residents who, mainly for the exercise, regularly patrol our county roads on foot and collect any bottles and cans they find. These model citizens could inform the task force’s work with first-hand knowledge of what actually ends up in the ditches of this state.

The task force was called for by the 2007 legislation that also will add water bottles to the deposit requirement starting in 2009.

It is a worthwhile goal to try to make new uses of all that plastic rather than just leaving it in a dump for the next 10,000 years. That is why curbside recycling is such an important aspect now of the way we live.

It is also why bottle returns should no longer be considered by themselves. Instead, increased recycling of all used containers should be considered as part of a program to reduce the need to dispose of all solid waste. Oregon is tackling that issue from the other side, by encouraging less consumption of material that has to be thrown away.

As for keeping the roadsides clear of litter, the bottle bill can’t be the only solution since so much of the trash now comes from fast food containers.

The bottle bill task force will make its report a year from now. Let’s hope that whatever it recommends, it won’t add more aggravation to the way people live, but instead zero in on ways to improve the recycling programs we have. (hh)