March 6, 2008
Bottle bill could reduce litter but cost customers more
By: Brittany Bailey
This week, lobbyists are asking state legislators to once again introduce the so-called Bottle Bill.
The move would add a 5-cent deposit to each drink container to encourage recycling, which they say is a small price to pay for a cleaner environment.
Robb Unger, part of the anti-litter group Pride of Place, hopes the bill would reduce litter, especially along his dock on the Little River.
"When the sun goes down, it's nice to be able to look out and see the scenery without anything floating but an occasional duck or two," he said.
Often, Unger finds much more. On Wednesday afternoon, he picked up a bucketful of plastic bottles, jugs and aluminum cans.
"It's the scourge of mankind, in some respects," Unger said of litter. "I mean, we live in our own filth when we throw litter in this lake, for example."
Unger is supporting the Bottle Bill, which would add a 5-cent deposit to each drink container, including glass, plastic and aluminum bottles and cans. The consumer would recover that amount upon turning the container in for recycling.
Distributors also would pay an additional 3-cent tax per container, which would go toward funding the processing facility.
The Beverage Association of Tennessee opposes the bill, saying the costs are too great and would be passed along to the consumer.
The group estimates the cost of a 24-pack will go up about $2.
"You're really looking at about an 8-cent increase in product on the shelf," said Jarron Springer, president of the Tennessee Grocers and Convenience Store Association, which also opposes the bill. "We already have enough border leakage and people going across state lines to do their shopping for other reasons. This is going to push them across state lines even more to buy those products."
Pride of Place coordinator Marge Davis said about half of any unclaimed deposit fees would go back to the distributors to make up for the added costs. Another portion would go to clean-up programs, including inmate work crews.
"Ultimately, what you're looking at is a program that is depending on unclaimed deposits to function," Springer said. "Yet, the more unclaimed deposits you have, the more of a failure in your program to begin with."
The opposition also says the amount of bottle and can litter is between 5 and 10 percent of all litter, based on a TDOT study. That would mean that adding the bottle bill would only put a small dent in the state's litter problem.
However, Davis says the drink container figure is closer to about half of all litter, basing her information on hands-on surveys and information from law enforcement work crews.
She hopes legislators will revisit the bill, which was discussed in the last session, and introduce it sometime next week.
Video available at
http://www.wbir.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=55306&provider=gnews
