May 3, 2007

In House, grocers express objections to expanded bottle bill
Vague wording will create burden for retailers, they say
BY AARON CLARK

Grocers railed against a proposed update to Oregon's bottle bill Wednesday, saying the legislation was vague and a "bottleneck" would be created if stores have to collect and store more types of containers before distributors pick them up for recycling.

The bill before the House committee on Energy and the Environment would require beverage distributors to include a 5-cent premium on all "water and flavored water" containers.

Grocers say the definition fails to distinguish between hundreds of brands of juices, teas, sports drinks, and flavored water.

"We don't know what 'flavored water' is; we don't know how someone else determines what flavored water is," said Joe Gilliam, the president of the Northwest Grocery Association. "You better clean up the bill if you want it to work, otherwise there is going to be mass confusion among the consumers."

The bill, which already has cleared the Senate, would expand the types of containers that grocery stores are required to take back, a provision that Gilliam said was a "mechanical meltdown of the bottle bill." The current law allows stores to reject brands of containers they don't sell, but the new legislation would require them to redeem nearly all of them.

"By asking retailers to accept every brand, whether they sell it or not, is a wholesale change of the bottle bill," Gilliam said. "We're going to be stuck with these containers, and a lot of this stuff is going to go into the waste stream."

The legislation also has drawn criticism from environmentalists who say it doesn't go far enough because the 5-cent deposit earned for recycling a container -- unchanged since 1971 -- doesn't provide enough financial incentive.

But lawmakers emphasized that a more aggressive recycling bill could face stiffer opposition in the House.

"Political balance" is critical to the success of the bill, said Rep. Jackie Dingfelder, D-Portland, the committee chairwoman. "Every change we make, there is somebody off the bill, somebody is on the bill. We want to make sure we have a bill that is going to pass the House, otherwise there is no point in moving forward."

Grocers have long complained that they want a piece of the recycling pie. Earnings generated by the 5-cent premium placed on beer and soft drink containers when they are not recycled are passed on to distributors.

At least one member of the committee said he favored a 5-cent increase in the premium on recycled containers to help reimburse what grocery stores say are significant costs for buying and maintaining redemption machines and for storing the crushed containers. Rep. Greg Smith, R-Heppner, said he would submit amendments to the bill that would place a 10-cent premium on bottles and cans to help fund recycling efforts by the grocers.

Rep. Vicki Berger, R-Salem, whose father, Richard Chambers, proposed the first bottle bill legislation in 1969, encouraged the committee to pass the version approved by the Senate.

"It has a little something everyone is going to love and a little something everyone is going to hate," Berger said. "That's the sign of a good bill."