March 13, 2008
Panel backs expanded bottle deposit law
HARTFORD — The Democratic-dominated Environment Committee was ready Friday to water down last year's version of the bottle deposit law, but Senate Minority Leader John McKinney persuaded them otherwise.
After a brief recess, Democrats agreed again to approve a bill that would expand the nickel-deposit regulation, even though the legislation that passed the Senate easily last year died in the House following a negative vote in the General Law Committee.
McKinney, R-Fairfield, agreed Friday that if the House opposition, backed by supermarkets and the beverage industry, emerges again this year, he would support the majority proposal to extend the 5-cent-deposit law only to water bottles, removing other drinks.
"I think I caught them off guard," McKinney said in an interview after the committee voted in favor of a bill that would require sports drinks, iced teas and other non-carbonated beverages to join the 28-year-old deposit law.
The legislation was approved 18-10. Southwestern Connecticut lawmakers who voted against it included Rep. Terry Backer, D-Stratford; Rep. Lawrence G. Miller, R-Stratford; and Rep. Jason Perillo, R-Shelton.
Most Democrats said the partial expansion of the bottle law was an attempt to at least advance the issue incrementally, if it were to pass.
McKinney said restricting the expansion to water was avoiding the difference between 21st century drinks and those of the mid-1970s when the law was first enacted.
"I have three kids, that's all they drink," McKinney said. "Juices, teas, Powerades, Gatorades and the like, and we're exempting them." He said that changing last year's bill doesn't make sense, since it wasn't killed just because teas and juices were in the legislation.
"If we believe expansion of the bottle bill is the right recycling program, the right anti-litter program, then why aren't we expanding it to cover all products?" he said. "It makes no sense."
Rep. Richard Roy, D-Milford, co-chairman of the committee, voted in favor of McKinney's amendment, but believes that water bottles amount to most litter.
McKinney responded that many people reuse their water bottles by filling them with more water. "The argument that our parks are filled with Poland Spring and Dasani water but they're not filled with Nestea and Gatorade bottles is just not an accurate argument," McKinney said.
He agreed that if opposition in the House arises again this year, he'd agree to rewriting the bill as a water-bottle-only statute.
"If the bill gets an up or down vote in the House of Representatives, I will then support a water-only bill if that can then pass the House," McKinney said.
The committee also approved, 29-0, a so-called single-stream recycling program that would become an experiment in several communities to see if Connecticut consumers would put all their recyclables in one 64-gallon can on their front sidewalks for pickup.
"I think a statewide recycling program would be much better," said Rep. Leonard C. Greene, R-Beacon Falls, who also opposed the expanded water-bottle-deposit. But Roy said it would actually complement the bottle-deposit effort.
Miller said that he doesn't think a wider-reaching deposit law would have any effect on teenagers. "To young people, nickels and dimes don't mean anything to them," Miller said.
But Rep. Mary M. Mushinsky, D-Wallingford, said it's clear that many senior citizens, Boy Scout groups and low-income residents scour their neighborhoods for deposit bottles and cans. Backer, another single-stream supporter, said the state needs to enact the most efficient recycling program it can get in an age where petroleum for plastics production is more and more expensive.
"What I'm interested in is the efficiencies," Backer said. "The efficiencies of how you get these things back to where they're going to be recycled and reprocessed and reused."
