June 23, 2008
Bottle battle far from over
WEST MICHIGAN -- The campaign to put a 10-cent deposit on bottled water and other noncarbonated beverages in Michigan is gaining momentum, but a local lawmaker said it will likely be a long and difficult struggle.
The Michigan United Conservation Clubs, which spearheaded the 1976 campaign that led to the current deposit on beer and soda containers, wants the state Legislature to expand it to bottled water, sports drinks and other noncarbonated beverages.
Michigan consumers discard about 1.1 billion water bottles and other noncarbonated drink containers each year, said MUCC Executive Director Dennis Muchmore.
"Although our citizens now return 97 percent of the 5.5 billion bottles and cans for which they pay a deposit, they recycle only 20 percent of the bottled water containers because no deposit is required," Muchmore said. "It's a terrible waste."
Most water and juice bottles are buried in landfills or discarded along roads, littering the landscape, according to industry data.
Bottled water is the fastest growing sector of the beverage market and will soon exceed pop sales, according to the Container Recycling Institute.
Muchmore said bottled water and sports drinks were a rarity when the first bottle law was passed three decades ago. "It's a good time to update the law and make it more relevant to today's market," he said.
Grocers are opposed to expanding the bottle deposit law.
"Our stores shouldn't have to be the refuse centers for the state of Michigan. People are bringing all the filth and insects that get in cans and bottles into our stores," said Ed Deeb, president and chief executive officer of the Michigan Food and Beverage Association. The group represents 4,100 grocers, party stores and beverage producers.
Therein lies the dispute: Conservationists want to expand the deposit law but retailers don't want to handle more empty containers.
State Sen. Gerald Van Woerkom, R-Norton Shores, said he supports expanding the deposit law to cover bottled water and other noncarbonated beverages, but only if the state builds recycling centers to handle all returnables. He said grocery stores and other retailers should not be recycling centers for dirty bottles and cans.
"It's amazing how filthy some of these containers are, yet they're so close to the food we're purchasing," Van Woerkom said. "It makes you wonder if it's safe."
The effort to expand the bottle bill was spurred by legislation that would crack down on fraudulent bottle and can returns from other states. Van Woerkom said retailers are losing millions of dollars annually to people from other states who bring cans and bottles to Michigan to cash in on the state's 10-cent deposit on pop and beer containers.
Fraudulent returns once were part of a "Seinfeld" episode that featured the characters Kramer and Newman hauling bottles and cans from New York to Michigan to collect the dime deposit on each container.
The Senate could act on bottle bill fraud legislation as early as this week. Van Woerkom said he doubts the Legislature will deal with the proposed expansion of the deposit law before this fall, but he said it is an issue lawmakers must address.
"There is a sense of urgency," Van Woerkom said. "We're seeing a huge increase in the number of bottles along roads. We feel that if those bottles have some value (such as a deposit), many of them will be recycled."
Resolving the dispute over whether retailers or new recycling centers should handle returnables will be difficult, Van Woerkom said.
"The ideal solution would be to get these bottles and cans out of the stores," he said. "But to do that we need recycling centers and those would take a couple of years to build."
Because it took a ballot initiative to enact the bottle law, the measure can only be amended if three-fourths of lawmakers agree.
"It's tough to get 75 percent of the Legislature to agree on Mother's Day," Muchmore said.
Recycling plastic bottles reduces litter and oil consumption -- plastic is made with petroleum products. The recycling of bottles and cans of pop and beer currently covered by the deposit law saves the equivalent of 450,000 barrels of oil annually, enough to fuel 150,000 cars for a month, according to the Michigan Recycling Coalition.
Previous attempts to expand Michigan's bottle deposit law have failed, largely due to opposition from grocers. Deeb said his members are prepared to fight that battle again.
http://www.mlive.com/news/chronicle/index.ssf?/base/news-14/1214232307130970.xml&coll=8
