Bottle Bills in the News
Bottle bills in general

Recycling group: Bottle deposit states create more jobs Shawn Wright

Dec. 15, 2011 Bottle deposit return systems create 11 to 38 times more jobs than curbside recycling systems for beverage containers, a recently released report has found. Waste & Recycling News

Plastics industry supports recycling (Opinion) By Don Loep

Nov. 28, 2011 The plastics industry is not an obstacle to recycling. But despite all the effort that many have put into recycling, that´s not universally understood outside the industry. Plastics News, Waste & Recycling News

How to Increase Plastic Bottle Recycling (Opinion) Diane MacEachern

November 16, 2011 If it's not easy to recycle something, is it really recyclable? That's a fair question to ask, since we consumers are constantly being reassured that a product is "green" or "greener" because it is "recyclable" -- even when, in reality, the product is barely being recycled at all. Huffington Post

Bottle Bills Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss

October 30, 2011 Dear EarthTalk: Why don’t more states mandate deposits on beverage bottles as incentives for people to return them? Most bottles I’ve seen only list a few states on them. E Magazine

Amount of recycled PET breaks 1.5 billion pounds By Mike Verespej

Oct. 12, 2011 After staying flat for two years, the volume of PET bottles recycled in the United States increased by 113 million pounds in 2010, pushing the recycling rate close to 30% for the first time since 1996. The 2010 rate of 29.1% is up from a low of 19.6% in 2003, and is only 2.6 %age points lower than the 31.7 % rate in 1996. Plastics News, Waste & Recycling News

Editor: Slots of money for turning recycling into a game of chance (Editorial) John Campanelli

Sept. 20 -- While recycling advocates have been banging their heads against their LEED-certified walls, it seems the answer to one of their biggest problems has been right here all along, or at least as close as the nearest Indian reservation. Waste & Recycling News

Where Do Uncollected Bottle Deposits Go? by Barry Monheit

September 12th, 2011 BARRY ASKED THE QUESTION: While I was drinking a bottle of water, I noticed it said “CA, MI, OR, HI, 5 cents.” I know this means that the price includes a 5-cent return deposit, but there’s no chance I’ll return it to that store (it will go in the recycle bin). So, what happens to that 5 cents the store collected? Earth911

Despite report, Coke still against 'forced' deposit laws Vince Bond Jr.

September 12, 2011 Coca-Cola still opposes bottle deposit measures despite a report that said the company is softening its stance. A report by As You Sow, an environmental advocacy group based in San Francisco, said Coca-Cola was now neutral on a "voluntary container deposit system administered by associated industries." Waste & Recycling News

Were Coke's recycling efforts a victim of its own anti-deposit lobbying? By Clare Goldsberry

September 1, 2011 It is difficult to find people in the plastics recycling industry who will criticize The Coca-Cola Company on record, but my conversations this week with a handful of plastics recyclers made clear they think Coke's much-hyped bottle recycling efforts in Spartanburg, SC, were done-in by the company's own lobbying against bottle deposit laws. The law of unintended consequences is in play, they say. Plastics Today

AYS responds to criticism By Henry Leineweber

August 25, 2011 In response to a story in last week's newsletter which raised some questions on the latest As You Sow report on container recycling, the organization's senior program director, Conrad MacKerron reached out to Resource Recycling in an attempt to clarify the story. Responding to the criticism that companies listed in the report were rated higher by the organization, despite little measurable increase in the container recycling rate, MacKerron said that companies received higher overall grades due to advancements in other areas. Resource Recycling

Save the water (Letter to the Editor) Tom Newman

August 25, 2011 I am so incensed at this whole water dumping scam debacle that I could spit. For one thing, if the person buying the water took it home and drank it and then returned the bottles three days later, there would be no problem. My biggest concern in these cases is the wasting of the water. Either drink it or leave it. Bangor Daily News

Federal Government Tries to Stop Food Stamp 'Water Dumping' Fraud By Judson Berger

August 24, 2011 The federal government is moving to crack down on a bizarre form of food-stamp fraud that's flushing away taxpayer dollars. The scam is called "water dumping." FoxNews.com

Coca-Cola revives its US recycling plant By Helen Glaberson

August 24, 2011 Coca-Cola and United Resource Recovery (URRC) are injecting life back into their US PET recycling plant after a six month project to overhaul operations. According to news reports, the joint venture, which makes food-grade pellets, was shut down last March. Beverage Daily

Major Beverage Companies Willing To Take Responsibility for Post-Consumer Packaging, Study Finds

August 10, 2011 New Report on Beverage Container Recycling Finds Coca-Cola, Nestlé Waters, New Belgium Support EPR Efforts Several major U.S. beverage brands would support new laws making producers financially responsible for collection and recycling of post-consumer beverage packaging, according to a new report assessing corporate progress on recycling released by shareholder advocacy group As You Sow. Bevnet

How Wasteful Are Your Companies? By Alyce Lomax

August 12, 2011 ...U.S. consumers buy 224 billion beverage containers every year, yet of those millions of tons of packaging, a mere 29% gets recycled. The rest is buried in landfills or incinerated. Faced with this wasted opportunity, major consumer-facing companies are stepping up their recycling efforts. Although there's plenty of work to do, some businesses seem notably better at reusing their containers' resources than others. The Motley Fool

Bottle deposit bill gets tagged with $1.4 million fiscal note, on way to study status The Associated Press

May 31, 2011 CARSON CITY, Nev. — The mission to add Nevada's name to the list of bottle deposit states is on its way to limbo. Lawmakers on the Assembly Ways and Means Committee heard support Tuesday for AB427. The bill would tack on a refundable 5-cent deposit onto plastic bottles. Nevadans would reclaim the cash by dropping off bottles at recycling centers. The bill's initial cost was pegged at around $500,000, but the updated proposal comes with an estimated $1.4 million per-year price tag because it would increase the state's responsibility. The bill will likely morph into a directive to study recycling programs during the interim. No action was taken on the bill.

The Republic