October 18, 2007
Woman 'pedals' bottle bill
800-mile bicycle ride to promote Pride of Place litter, recycling proposal
By MATT RENNELS
Marge Davis is riding a bicycle across the state to deliver a message about a bottle.
She is in the midst of an 800-mile bicycle trek across the state, one that made its way through Clarksville Wednesday afternoon, spreading word about Pride of Place, a comprehensive litter and recycling plan that has been proposed in the state Legislature, which would put in place a 5-cent deposit on glass, plastic and aluminum beverage containers.
"Every night I feel my cells are rebuilding," she said, tired after traveling 27 miles Tuesday before spending the night in Dover.
But she said that distance is "nothing." It doesn't get bad for Davis until she has ridden about 50 miles.
"Then I'm running out of daylight," she said.
Davis is the coordinator of Pride of Place, originally known as the Tennessee Bottle Bill Project, and they are backing the Tennessee Beverage Container Deposit Act of 2007.
Under the legislation, the State would collect 8 cents per unit from vendors, who would get a nickel back from stores selling their beverages. Customers pay a 5-cent deposit to the store when they buy the drinks and can return the empty containers and claim their deposit at a redemption center. The State pays the center back with money collected from the bottlers.
The bill, also known as Senate Bill 1408, sponsored by Sen. Doug Jackson, and the House version, HB1829, sponsored by Rep. Mike Turner, has added 12 additional co-sponsors from both parties and is gaining steam, according to a news release.
But the bill won't be passed in 2007, as it was rolled to 2008 earlier this year.
The new bill has some changes from previous proposals, most notably the hundreds of redemption centers, which Davis said would be small, independent locations across the state for people to drop off their recyclables.
The redemption centers will take the place of grocery and convenience stores, which in previous proposals would have been required to handle the returned items.
William Beach, owner of the Beach Oil Company, which operates 15 area BP convenience stores, has long been against the Bill for that reason. Beach said they were concerned about the extra work for employees, necessary storage space for the bottles and cans and health implications, but he was intrigued by the new proposal.
"That would be nice if we were taken out of the equation," he said.
Beach said he was unfamiliar with the new bill, but he wants to take a look at the legislation to see if he supports it.
Davis started the first leg of her trip Oct. 6 in Nashville and already has visited Dickson, Jackson, Memphis and Dyersburg, and will begin a second leg Oct. 20, when she will head southeast, stopping in Chattanooga, Knoxville and Johnson City, among other cities.
Davis said she has received an overwhelmingly positive response. "I expected seven out of 10 people to support this," she said. "It's at least 9 out of 10."
Now she hopes the positive reaction will produce results.
"The legislators need to know their constituents are smart people, and then say 'let's do it,'" Davis said.
Davis said states that have implemented bottle bill legislation — including Iowa, Maine, Vermont and Michigan — have 30 percent of bottles and cans are recycled, compared to 10 percent in Tennessee.
"Tennessee is too beautiful to bury under landfills or litter," she said.
Matt Rennels can be reached by telephone at 245-0216 or by e-mail at mattrennels@theleafchronicle.com.
http://www.theleafchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071018/NEWS01/710180330
