May 24, 2011
Eastside Times
New Bill Aims to Reduce Waste While State Collects Funds
A new bill to reduce litter and protect our landfills was filed on March 3.
Senate Bill 1119 and House Bill 2114 - commonly referred as The Texas Beverage Recycling Initiative 2011 - will institute a deposit on all aluminum, glass and plastic beverage containers sold in Texas.
The Senate Bill is still in finance committee while the House Bill was read for the first time by the Environmental Regulation committee March 8.
A fee not to exceed five cents on containers 24 oz or less and 10 cents on containers greater than 24 oz. The state comptroller will be responsible for coordinating and collecting fees.
Consumers then have a choice to recycle their bottles for a full refund on the deposit. Money collected by the state that is not redeemed will be placed in a fund for recycling education, according to the bottle bill Web site, www.texasbottlebill.com.
Over 33 billion cans, bottles and other beverage containers will become litter or be incinerated in the U.S. this year. Americans throw away 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour according to the Web site, www.ecology-action.org.
If only 10 percent of Americans bought products with less plastic packaging 10 percent of the time, approximately 144 million pounds of plastic could be eliminated from our landfills. Over 1.5 million barrels of oil were consumed to make plastic bottles consumed in the United States last year not including the petroleum used to transport them.
Eighty percent of plastic bottles become garbage instead of being recycled.
For example, if an Austinite drinks two 12 ounce bottles of water each day for 300 days, at an average of $1 per bottle they will spend $600 per year on drinking water and will consume and dispose of nearly 7 gallons worth of petroleum in the plastic alone.
Texas Campaign for the Environment, a non-profit organization in Austin, Dallas and Houston, informs people about recycling and protects the health of Texans by consistently showing Texans support policies to protect the environment.
TCE is supporting the bill by going door-to-door in various communities encouraging people to send letters to their representatives, so they can vote for the bill. Members of TCE are also lobbying congressmen and state senators in the capitol.
Stacy Guidry, Austin’s TCE program director, said the community is helping by sending letters to their representatives and also donating money to the program for recycling.
“We have had very positive feedback from local government from Texas residents and businesses,” Guidry said.
In 2009, TCE income total equaled approximately 1.4 million. Seventy-three percent of that, money was used to educate over 600,000 Texans.
Although TCE has support from the public, Guidry said the beer industry opposes this bill because it will hurt their business.
According to the Beer Serves America Web site, www.beerservesamerica.org the beer industry adds $32 billion and federal, state and local governments receive taxes equaling a total of $44 billion annually. As stated on their Web site:
“Over the past several decades American brewers have been recognized for their commitment to protecting and improving our environment. Through conserving energy and water, reusing byproducts and waste, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and establishing comprehensive recycling programs the brewing industry has asserted itself as a leading environmental steward.”
Recycled plastic can be formed into new products such as containers and even new fashion. Fashion is not the only thing coming out of recycled plastic, but also home decorators such as iron sculptor, status and even glassware.
Allan Greg, Licensed Beverage Distributors’ executive director, said that his concerns and other peoples’ as well, is that money could be redeemed even though that container was not purchased in the state.
“Our major concerns are that there have been experiences in some states where people collect bottles in other states and collected the money for bottles that were not sold in that state,” Greg said.
He also said that this bill will have ‘some-what’ of an effect on business.
Scientists are discovering old and new chemicals present and harmful in our drinking water, which has some people alarmed and make “healthy” choices by consuming water from bottles. No wonder sales of water have increased from 15 billion units sold, to 29.8 billion in just 3 years, according to the Container Recycling Institute.
According to the Web site earth911.com, in 2009, 5.1 billion pounds of polyethylene terephthalate or “PET” used for bottles and jars were available in the U.S. Around 1.5 million tons of plastic bottles required approximately 47 million gallons of oil produce each year. An estimated 2.7 million tons of plastic is used just to make plastic water bottles not including beverages such as soda, tea, energy drinks or other beverages.
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