Letter to the Editor

Bottle Bill Outdated

As The Courant urges the state to greedily grab leftover beverage container deposits [Our View editorial, Dec. 2, "Inching To Accountability"], we should consider the implications of the fact that $28 million was unclaimed in 2006. This means that 560 million cans and bottles never made it back to redemption centers. Where did they go?

Surely some landed on Connecticut roadsides, while others took out-of-state trips, ending up in gas station trash cans or along other states' highways. Many more were buried in landfills, and a lot were simply tossed into curbside recycling bins. All in all, it's not much of an endorsement of that nickel incentive to return bottles and cans.

All of that makes me wonder: Why do we have a bottle law to begin with? Before curbside recycling, and now single-stream recycling, it might have made sense. Now it's just a legacy of a time that has passed, as those 560 million cans and bottles would attest.

Richard Urban, Farmington

http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/editorials/hc-digbrflets1207.art1dec07,0,150890.story