February 25, 2008
Bottle bill likely a bust
Lawmakers don’t expect action on proposal
By JOHN MOLSEED
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A proposal to encourage Iowans to recycle more beverage containers is likely going to end up in the trash this legislative session.
Gov. Chet Culver proposed updating Iowa’s 30-year-old bottle deposit bill to include juice, water and sports drink containers.
Democrats in both the House and Senate say the idea isn’t likely to go anywhere this year.
‘‘I applaud him on it, but it was almost dead on arrival,’’ said Sen. Daryl Beall, D-Fort Dodge.
Lawmakers and environmental officials do agree that policies should be updated for today’s consumption.
‘‘We have all these additional containers that weren’t there in 1979,’’ said Brian Tormey, bureau chief of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources solid waste management.
‘‘From an environmental and recycling standpoint, it makes sense.’’
‘‘Who would have thought that in 1978, that the most plentiful substance on earth — water — would sell for $1 a bottle,’’ said Beall.
Culver’s initial proposal also called for raising the deposit to 10 cents per container. One penny would go to distributors and another would go to recycling centers. That means consumers would get 8 cents back per container.
Lawmakers called it a back-door tax.
‘‘People don’t seem to be happy with paying more money for the things they’re taking home,’’ Rep. Helen Miller, D-Fort Dodge, said.
Miller also questioned how container deposits can be determined and whether dairy and food products would be included.
‘‘After a point in time, we need to ask, ‘is it practical anymore?’’’ Miller said.
Other states have updated their bottle deposit laws. California and Maine now include water and juice containers. An expanded law in Oregon covers water bottles and goes into effect in 2009. Hawaii’s 2002 law includes nearly all nondairy beverage containers.
Like in Iowa, the other six states’ bottle deposit laws are decades old and don’t include noncarbonated, nonalcoholic beverages.
Though limited, these deposit laws do encourage recycling, Tormey said.
The recycling rate for soft drink and alcohol containers is 86 percent in states with such laws but only 35 percent nationwide. Per capita, people recycle 490 containers per year in those 11 states, compared to 191 containers per capita in nondeposit states, Tormey said.
‘‘I think expansion will be there eventually,’’ he added.
While including more containers in the deposit law may not happen this year, Beall has sponsored a bill to update the law to give redemption centers more than 1 cent per container they have received since 1979.
‘‘My concern is that redemption centers and recycling centers stay in business,’’ he said. ‘‘They’re not a public utility. They’re private enterprises and at the end of the day, if they don’t make money, they’re going to close.’’
Under his proposal, consumers would still get their full nickel back; beverage distributors would pay that additional penny.
Stores that sell deposit containers are required to accept them back and pay the deposit unless consumers have another, convenient location to take their containers. However, convenience is relative, Tormey said.
‘‘Define convenient,’’ he said. ‘‘Taking them back to the point of sale would be most convenient.’’
In 2006, some stores refused to accept back beverage containers. Some redemption centers began to return 4 cents for unsorted cans and bottles. While keeping an extra cent isn’t allowed under the deposit law, consumers have been willing to give up the penny for convenience.
Beall said his proposal would address those problems. As for a plan to include water and other containers, that will have to be recycled for another legislative session.
Contact John Molseed at (515) 573-2141 or jmolseed@messengernews.net
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