Letter to the Editor

Can the bottle bill, recycle instead

To the editor:

I am writing this letter in response to your newspaper's editorial on April 14 ("The benefits of expanding the 'bottle bill'"). In advocating for a new tax on bottled water, sports drinks and juices, The Advocate fails to acknowledge a proven recycling alternative that is a sweeping success across the country - single-stream recycling.

The 21st Century Recycling Coalition - a broad-based collaborative of grocery stores, beverage distributors and others - is advocating for single-stream recycling as Connecticut's recycling solution, and there is a bill working its way through the state Legislature right now (House Bill 5138) that would bring single-stream recycling to several Connecticut towns. Single-stream recycling is clean, green and convenient - it does away with messy sorting and waiting in long lines at the grocery store, it dramatically increases recycling rates wherever it is used, and it comes with the ease of all recycled materials going into one bin.

In short, single-stream recycling works for the consumer and it works for the environment. Expansion of the current bottle bill, as has been proven time and time again, does not. It will do nothing to improve the state's low recycling rates and very little to help the environment. Where single-stream recycling increases recycling rates by more than 90 percent in cities and towns that use it, an expanded bottle bill would improve recycling rates by less than 1 percent.

What's more, an expanded bottle bill is ridiculously expensive. Single-stream recycling costs $150 a ton to implement, when factoring in collection and disposal costs. Expanding the bottle bill, on the other hand, has been shown to cost more than 40 times more. And who will pay for those added costs? The consumer.

The Advocate is correct in its assessment that Connecticut needs to clean up its litter problem, but that will not be accomplished through an expanded bottle bill. Connecticut's anti-litter laws are the weakest in all of New England, and have not been strengthened since 1992. The 21st Century Recycling Coalition strongly supports legislation to boost Connecticut's litter laws and to increase penalties against those who litter the most.

As we have been saying for quite a while now, it's time to "Give Green A Chance" and support single-stream recycling.

Stan Sorkin

Farmington

The writer is executive director of the Connecticut Food Association.

http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/opinion/ci_8997891