Editorial

Recycling can pay off

South Carolina lawmakers threw away the opportunity to discourage littering and encourage recycling when they tabled discussion on a bottle-deposit law earlier this week. The topic is not likely to be revived, according to the Associated Press.

Under the proposal, a 5-cent deposit added to the cost of each beverage in plastic or glass would be returned to the consumer when empties were taken to a redemption center.

Ten other states have beverage-deposit laws, although AP noted that Delaware repealed its law last year. A little explanation is in order. The Delaware law was replaced with a 4-cent nonrefundable recycling fee on all residents and businesses, regardless of their consumption habits or recycling efforts.

According to the Container Recycling Institute in Washington, D.C., states with bottle bills have three times the recycling rates of states without such legislation. It also cites state studies that show beverage container legislation has reduced roadside litter by as much as 64 percent.

While in the past some beverage producers have opposed bottle bills, just in the last year, bottlers PepsiCo and Coca-Cola Co. have partnered with retailers and sporting venues to provide recycling kiosks to discourage litter.

Last April, Target announced plans to place recycling bins for aluminum, glass and plastic beverage containers, plastic bags, MP3 players, cell phones and ink cartridges in its more than 1,700 stores in 49 states.

Grocery stores have recycling bins for plastic grocery bags (and encourage consumers to use cloth bags with inexpensive ones emblazoned with the store’s name available). Office supply stores give credit on the cost of a printer ink cartridge with the return of empty cartridges.

And recycling is big business in South Carolina, according to the S. C. Council on Competitiveness, which reports that the industry provides more than 35,000 jobs and produces $1.5 billion in personal income for South Carolinians.

But recycling has to be convenient for more people to participate. According to CRI (www.container-recycling.org), two-thirds of all beverage containers in the United States never get recycled. Its website has a continually updating graphic for the number of beverage cans and bottles that were “landfilled, littered and incinerated” in the U.S. so far this year. On Wednesday afternoon, it was more than 16 billion — and counting.

South Carolinians are no slouches when it comes to recycling some products. According to the S.C. Solid Waste Management Annual Report (fiscal year 2009, the last available), statewide we recycled 912,961 tons of municipal solid waste — household garbage. But even with that impressive number, our recycling rate was only 22.1 percent.

With 5 cents per bottle or can at stake, people might think twice before throwing an empty out the car window or in the trash. And we would be helping to preserve our reputation as the state of smiling faces and beautiful places in the bargain. Lawmakers didn’t think we would stand for an extra 5 cents and respond with greater recycling efforts.

Let’s prove them wrong and recycle anyway.

http://www.independentmail.com/news/2011/feb/17/recycling-can-pay/