April 8, 2009
Opinion
State should notice value in bottle bill
Tuesday, the eyes of the recycling world were on Tennessee, when the Senate Environment Committee was to consider SB1404, the Tennessee Beverage Container Recycling Act.
The redesigned "bottle bill" could very well pass this year. The net new cost to beverage distributors has been reduced to zero. Our existing litter programs will be preserved. And the hundreds of independent "redemption centers" — which may now also accept your newspaper, cardboard and mayonnaise jars — will be supported not by the bottlers, but by the value of the scrap and the estimated 15 percent of deposits that won't be redeemed.
If the bill does pass, the rejoicing you'll hear won't come just from the 80 percent of Tennesseans who support a 5-cent deposit. It won't come just from the farmers, sportsmen and tourism businesses that are especially aggrieved by litter. It won't be just from nonprofits who hope to operate redemption centers; nor just from advocates for green jobs and green energy; nor just from solid waste directors who have despaired of ever reaching the state's 25-percent recycling mandate.
It will come, fervently if quietly, from the processors and manufacturers who desperately need the high-quality, high-quantity scrap guaranteed by a container deposit, but who until recently have refrained from saying so for fear of angering their beverage-industry customers.
Lobbyists play key role
But now that they are speaking out — now that the Aluminum Association, the Glass Packaging Institute and the Association of Postconsumer Plastic Recyclers have all acknowledged the unique effectiveness of bottle bills in helping meet their recycling goals —Tennessee's anti-bottle-bill forces have lost at least some of their steam.
But never underestimate the ingenuity of the beverage lobbyists. Sensing cracks in their wall of legislative support, they have submitted two recycling bills of their own, in hopes of dragging all three into a summer study committee on "comprehensive recycling." Their preferred solution: Single-stream curbside collection, in which an assortment of household recyclables are put into the same bin, to be sorted later at a recycling facility.
"Why focus on bottles and cans?" their argument now runs. "Beverage containers are just 5 percent of the waste stream. We need to address all of it."
It has a nice ring of logic — until you start applying it to other items. Used motor oil is a small portion of the waste stream, too, but you wouldn't pour it into your curbside bin. Beverage containers cause significant, costly contamination issues in single-stream and drop-off collection programs, because once you've thrown everything together, it's impossible to completely "unscramble the egg," as one processor puts it. Some plant managers refuse to buy material from curbside programs.
The other flaw in lobbyists' argument is that Tennessee already has comprehensive recycling. We have bins for cell phones, recycling fees on tires, compost piles for yard waste and special collections for household hazardous waste. We have an abundance of educational materials and 500 convenience centers, and the handful of curbside programs that haven't succumbed to budget cuts due to low participation.
Yet even with all these options, Tennessee's residential recycling rate is a measly 10 percent, according to the state Department of Environment and Conservation. Clearly the key is not simply giving folks access; it's giving them an incentive. And nothing provides an incentive like money.
Marge Davis is vice president of Scenic Tennessee and coordinator of Pride of Place/the Tennessee Bottle Bill Project.
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20090408/OPINION01/904080387/1008
