February 11, 2010
Unemployment benefits subject to income taxes
[Portions of this article removed: available at http://www.starbulletin.com/news/20100211_unemployment_benefits_subject_to_income_taxes.html]
Question: Recently, I've been buying wine and noticed that I'm not assessed the recycling beverage fee. Aren't wine bottles recyclable? Also, can we recycle old magazines?
Answer: You can recycle wine bottles via residential curbside recycling bins or community recycling bins, but they're not part of the state's Deposit Beverage Container Program.
That program imposes a fee on certain beverages and containers to give consumers an incentive to turn them in for a refund (see hsblinks.com/1v9).
Since you don't pay the five-cent refundable recycling fee and one-cent non-refundable handling fee when you purchase wine, hard liquor or milk, you can't redeem the containers at recycling sites.
House Bill 1975 was introduced during this legislative session to add wine and hard spirits to the definition of "deposit beverage," but it already has been shelved in committee.
Meanwhile, magazines with glossy pages are not recyclable. If you can't find someone or some organization to give your magazines to, the city advises just tossing them into the regular trash, where they will be burned at the HPOWER waste-to-energy plant.
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