September 30, 2009
Stop tossing out water bottles
5-cent deposit required as of today
Water bottles become part of Connecticut’s deposit/return law today, but supermarket owners fear they’ll be nickel and dimed and then some by containers coming from out of state.
“It’s not going to be pleasant,” said Stan Sorkin, president of the Connecticut Food Association in Farmington, a supermarket trade group. “I foresee a lot of cross-border redemptions.”
The fact that Rhode Island does not have a bottle bill will put pressure on the finances of Eastern Connecticut supermarket operators by making them pay for unmarked water bottles brought from Rhode Island, Sorkin said. Yet the state Department of Environmental Protection Web site says markets and other redemption centers need only redeem bottles with a Connecticut mark on them.
Added costs will mean higher prices for shoppers and fewer supermarket job opportunities, industry leaders say. A 24-count case of water will carry a $1.20 deposit beginning today.
“It’s going to force people into some tough choices,” Sorkin said.
Buy water in Rhode Island
Despite the higher prices, some consumers said they aren’t going to drive to Rhode Island to buy water.
“You’d probably spend more in gas than you’d save on the water,” Bill Avery of Lisbon, a state Department of Transportation worker, said Wednesday while working a detail outside the Tri-Town Foods Village Market in Ledyard.
“But beer is a different story,” his co-worker Brian Warren of Thompson said. Beer may be purchased on Sundays in Rhode Island, but not in Connecticut. Connecticut lawmakers considered lifting the ban on Sunday beer sales amid this year’s economic and budget crisis, but nothing was enacted.
Connecticut instituted a bottle bill in 1978 and it took effect two years later. It is one of 11 states with a deposit/return law. Adding water to the redemption law pitted environmentalists against business owners. Two local supermarket operators acknowledge an environmental benefit through a likely reduction in litter, but say the timing of the bill’s expansion is less than ideal.
“In this economic climate it’s tough to absorb (added) expenses,” said Kevin Brouillard, vice president of Tri-Town Foods, whose chain includes stores in Ledyard and Montville.
“Consumers are definitely going to feel an impact.”
‘Absolute nightmare’
“The short answer is it’s going to be an absolute nightmare,” said Frank Bokoff, owner of the Better Val-U Supermarket in Lisbon. “It’s definitely going to add costs to the bottle redemption program.”
The Connecticut branch of the Sierra Club and ConnPIRG were among the supporters of the extension. The Sierra Club’s Connecticut legislative affairs director, Martin Mador, couldn’t be reached for comment.
ConnPIRG, also known as the Connecticut Public Interest Research Group, is affiliated with Washington-based U.S. PIRG.
Jim Leahy, a former ConnPIRG executive director who is now a consultant to the West Hartford-based group, acknowledged the organization’s support for extension, but wasn’t available to speak further.
A Web site run by the Container Recycling Institute, called the Bottle Bill Resource Guide, listed as major successes the fact that Connecticut laws were changed this year to include water and make unclaimed deposits property of the state.
The California-based institute has supported many deposit/return efforts, including a 2007 national bottle bill proposal by U.S. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass. The group believes that bottle bills promote recycling and lessen chances of climate change.
Connecticut’s water provision was to take effect April 1, but bottlers got a six-month extension to begin labeling and make other adjustments.
Further deliberation of industry and government leaders might have produced a better law at such a critical economic juncture, Brouillard said.
“Between the legislators and the distributors, I had hoped we could find helpful solutions,” he said.
Call for curbside pickup
Sorkin called for a curbside pickup program. Bokoff said a commitment by shoppers to redeem all that they use would be the best way to see a noticeable environmental improvement. Only about half of the soda containers used in Connecticut are redeemed, Sorkin said.
“It’s something that concerns us (businesses) and it ought to concern consumers,” Bokoff said.
Small markets and convenience stores are likely to feel more financial pressure than so-called
“big-box” stores, Brouillard said.
“They sell an awful lot of water, but they don’t do a lot of redemptions,” he said. “With us, it’s the other way. We redeem more than we sell.”
Higher prices
Large bottlers, including Coca-Cola and Pepsi, already are boosting prices and handling fees in anticipation of the water addition, supermarket operators said. This means higher costs for distributors like Bozzuto’s Inc. in Cheshire, which counts Tri-Town and Big Y Supermarkets among its customers. A Bozzuto executive couldn’t be reached for comment.
Labeling and other changes mean a major time consuming labor undertaking, Sorkin said.
“It means something to everyone, but in our case it’s not something good,” he said.
http://www.norwichbulletin.com/news/business/x1991994927/Stop-tossing-out-water-bottles
