May 12, 2010
Delaware House OKs
curbside recycling
Bill headed to Markell; pickups to start
in 2011
A landmark bill requiring trash haulers to provide curbside recycling pickup statewide cleared its final legislative hurdle Tuesday and headed to Gov. Jack Markell for his signature.
House Democrats swept aside constitutional challenges and dumped a series of potential killer amendments during 21¼2 hours of debate, then passed S.B. 234 by a vote of 26 to 12.
The measure -- one of Markell's key environmental bills this year -- requires all private or municipal government waste haulers to begin offering recycling pickup for all single-family home customers by Sept. 15, 2011. The service requirement would extend to apartment buildings and other multifamily residences by Jan. 1, 2013, and commercial sites by 2014. Recycling would remain voluntary for residents themselves.
The program would draw startup funds from a new 4-cent recycling fee on small bottles of carbonated beverages. That temporary charge would replace the state's 28-year-old, 5-cent deposit on the same containers.
"The plan is comprehensive, cost-effective and practical. It's designed to dramatically increase recycling while reducing burdens on businesses and restraining the cost of waste," Markell said in a statement late Tuesday. "Making recycling convenient and available to every household in the state was a goal long sought that can now become reality."
Supporters said that service costs and the new fee, which would end after four years, will be offset by savings on wastes diverted from landfills to lower- cost recycling programs.
"The economics of this deal is: It's cheaper to recycle and more expensive to throw it in a landfill," said Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control Secretary Collin P. aO'Mara.
Charges for regular waste disposal at Delaware Solid Waste Authority landfills are slated to increase by 50 percent on July 1. Landfill expansion costs and DSWA's subsidies for recycling services account for much of the increase.
The legislation faces an immediate challenge from Republicans, who argue that the bill needed a 75 percent majority vote, and not the 60 percent claimed by supporters, because it creates new fees and allocates funds to municipalities and private groups.
"I believe, and our legal counsel believes, that there are some significant constitutional problems with t his bill," said House Minority Leader Richard Cathcart, R-Middletown. "I believe that as soon as the governor signs it, there will be a lawsuit filed to block the implementation."
Critics of the bill say it would create a new sales tax and needlessly subsidize initial costs for commercial haulers.
Others question the bill's goal of reaching a 50 percent municipal recycling rate by 2015 and a 60 percent rate by 2020.
Supporters point out that lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to abolish the bottle deposit law last year, after complaints that nearly 90 percent of deposits go unclaimed, becoming a windfall for wholesalers and bottlers.
Markell vetoed the abolition of the deposit law, saying that he wanted to develop a comprehensive effort to expand the state's recycling rate.
Delaware has trailed the region in recycling efforts for decades. The state now recycles about 30 percent of wastes, but only 12 percent to 15 percent of household trash.
Rep Michael P. Mulrooney, D-Pennwood, the bill's House sponsor, said that the administration worked with industry, citizen and environmental groups for months to develop S.B. 234.
"We have a fragile compromise. Any amendment can kill the bill," Mulrooney said Tuesday, shortly before the House took up the bill and turned back three calls for legal rulings and seven proposed amendments.
http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20100512/NEWS02/5120324/House-OKs-curbside-recycling
