February 8, 2010
Is the bottle half full?
Joe Kvilhaug, director of financial services for Wredemco, a redemption center based in Wrentham, said the proposed expansion of the bottle bill would increase his business and could enable him to hire more workers. (Staff photo by Martin Gavin) Local businesses mixed on expanded return proposal Local business owners are guardedly positive about a proposal to expand the types of drink containers that would require a five-cent deposit - despite possible costs to them.
"Anything that forces people to recycle more is good," said Michael Benjamin, owner of Rehoboth House of Pizza. "There is way too much waste going on."
The current law applies only to soda and beer cans and bottles.
Under Gov. Deval Patrick's proposal to expand the "bottle bill," consumers would be charged a nickle deposit on an additional 1.6 billion beverage containers for water, coffee, tea, fruit juices and energy drinks.
The goal is to spur recycling, but also to boost state coffers.
Benjamin said distributors would charge him an extra nickel for containers eligible for deposit, but he said he would not pass the cost along to his customers.
"We would lose the extra nickel, but it wouldn't affect me much," said Benjamin, who co-owns the restaurant with his wife Fatima.
Varsha Patel, owner of Sun Market in Attleboro, disagrees.
"I am going to have to raise the customer's price," Patel said. "We don't sell without checking the price we pay. I can't just stop selling."
Joe Kvilhaug, director of financial services for Wredemco, a redemption center based in Wrentham, said the proposed expansion would increase his business and could enable him to hire more workers.
"Our volume would definitely increase, and we would be able to justify hiring with enough volume," Kvilhaug said. "We would have to get additional space, and a lot depends on how much more money we would be paying in rent."
Under the current container law, redemption centers are reimbursed 7.25 cents by the distributor for every nickel they refund customers who return cans and bottles.
The bottle bill began as an anti-littering initiative more than two decades ago, and now covers about 2.35 billion containers per year, according to Greg Cooper, deputy division director of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection.
Patrick's budget proposal estimates the state could make an additional $20 million from unclaimed deposits on bottles and cans not currently covered by the law.
The governor's budget would use $5 million of the new revenue for recycling programs.
DEP estimates that 70 percent of containers now eligible are redeemed. Applying that formula, the state expects to collect a nickle each on 30 percent of newly eligible containers - a total of about $24 million.
"In these instances when the consumer does not redeem the deposit, the unclaimed bottle deposit goes back to the state," Cooper said. "After all, they certainly aren't the distributor's nickels."
One local lawmaker is leery of the proposal.
"I think recycling is working, so we don't need another bill to raise the cost," said Rep. Bill Bowles, D-Attleboro.
Bowles said the argument for the bill - particularly the $20 million or more in new revenue - indicates that the new provision would jeopardize the bottle bill's original purpose.
"If the state gets $20 million, then people aren't redeeming the bottle," said Bowles. "It's just another tax to charge somebody a nickel more for the bottle."
http://www.thesunchronicle.com/articles/2010/02/08/news/6892767.txt
