Collect. Connect. Recycle.

We covered the initial story back in October when SB 402 was vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger. Here’s hoping for a revival!

The Bottle Bill Fix, AB 7, just passed the Assembly and now heads to the Governor’s Desk.  AB 7 will immediately restore roughly $15 million per month in core recycling funding under California’s successful Bottle Bill. Funding was cut last July forcing the closure of hundreds of centers and the loss of several hundred ‘green jobs’.  If signed into law by Governor Schwarzenegger, AB 7 will immediately restore funding and prevent millions in further cuts to recyclers, local governments, conservation corps and other core components of California’s successful Bottle Bill.

Details

California’s successful Beverage Container Recycling Program is under threat due to significant cuts to core recycling programs, such as payments for supermarket-based recycling, payments for curbside recycling and payments to conservation corps recycling. Cuts are due in large part to outstanding loan repayments to General Fund.  Without AB 7, California recyclers and local governments will continue to face millions in cuts, including:

• $15 million for curbside recycling
• $8.25 million for conservation corps recycling
• $20 million for recycling grants
• $10.5 million to local governments
• $10 million for quality incentive payments for glass
• $10 million for market development for plastic containers
• $44 million in handling fees for supermarket recycling centers

TAKE ACTION: Tell Governor Schwarzenegger to Sign AB 7 into Law!

The now 9-month campaign to restore funds cut from the California Bottle Bill has been a top priority and consumed a tremendous amount of time and resources. Thanks for your support!

UPDATE

Governor Schwarzenegger signs AB 7 into Law. The letter to the Members of the California State Assembly is here.

A Virginia legislative panel has rejected a proposal to levy a tax on consumers who accept paper bags or plastic bags from retailers.

A House Finance subcommittee tabled HB1115, a bill that would have required shoppers to pay a five-cent tax for each carryout bag received from retail establishments, including grocers, pharmacies and department stores.

The move follows on the heels of a decision by state legislators to set aside a proposal to ban plastic retail bags.

“Most public officials have determined that a new tax is not the most effective approach to combat litter – and that recycling works,” says Shari Jackson of the American Chemistry Council’s Progressive Bag Affiliates, which represents domestic plastic bag manufacturers.

The ideal solution would be for consumers to utilize reusable bags as blogged about here: Which is Better… Paper or Plastic?

Dome of the Oklahoma State Capital

Oklahoma State Representative Ryan Kiesel aims to implement a 5-cent beverage container deposit program in Oklahoma as a way to reduce litter and provide an infusion of much-needed cash for the budget.

State Rep. Kiesel and members of a House committee examined the issue recently at the state Capitol and says he will introduce a bill in the next legislative session.

Kiesel, D-Seminole, said the specifics have not been worked out, but the plan would require consumers to pay an extra 5 cents for each beverage container they buy, including glass bottles, aluminum cans and plastic water bottles. When consumers return the empty containers to the retailer or redemption centers, they get the deposit refunded.

He said money from unredeemed deposits could generate millions of dollars for state coffers.

“Whether you’re looking at the millions saved by reducing litter on our highways, the increase in state revenue without raising taxes, the positive environmental impact or the opportunities for economic growth, a bottle deposit program delivers on all counts,” Kiesel said.

Similar bills in recent years have not even been granted hearings in a state with a weak environmental lobby and opposition from a host of interest groups — including distributors, grocers and convenience store operators. They have expressed concern about labor costs, infrastructure needs and the sanitation issue of having used cans and bottles coming back to them.

The Oklahoma Grocers Association and a group representing convenience store operators already have come out against the plan, and the president of the powerful Oklahoma Malt Beverage Association (OMBA) said his group has opposed similar measures in the past.

“We’re taking a wait-and-see attitude, but I can tell you in the past, we’ve been opposed to it,” said OMBA President Brett Robinson. “Typically in these situations, the industry will align very quickly and be very involved in how this thing develops.”

But a few changes in the political landscape could help Kiesel get some traction on the bill this year. For the first time, a major glass manufacturer — Saint-Gobain Containers in Sapulpa — has come out in favor of the measure. Jim Bologna, the site energy manager at the plant that employs 340 workers, told the panel that because of a limited supply in Oklahoma, his company uses only 15 percent recycled glass. Most of that glass, he said, comes from Iowa, a state with a bottle-deposit program.

Kiesel also said he’s found some Republican allies, which would be helpful in moving the bill through the GOP-controlled Legislature.

Ultimately, it would come down to money, said Michael Patton, executive director of the Tulsa-based Metropolitan Environmental Trust, which operates 12 recycling businesses in northeast Oklahoma.

“There’s too much money on the table for states to ignore and there are too many jobs that would be created,” Patton said.

In Connecticut, a state with about as many residents as Oklahoma, officials anticipate their bottle-deposit law, which was recently expanded to include plastic beverage containers, will generate about $20 million annually in unclaimed deposits, said Chris Phelps, program director for Environment Connecticut.

But the redemption rate in Connecticut is nearly 80 percent, while in Oklahoma those numbers would probably be lower, Patton said. He predicted Oklahoma likely could generate close to $50 million with a similar program.

“We have one of the lowest recycling rates possible,” Patton said. “We estimate that the average Oklahoman will purchase 242 water bottles in a year. They’ll recycle 22.”

Original article written by: Sean Murphy

Click here for more information on the Oklahoma Bottle Bill

Rutherford County (Tennessee) leaders want to study the idea of a proposed state law requiring nickel deposits on beverage containers to increase recycling.

The Rutherford County Commission’s Public Works Committee discussed the issue Tuesday night without voting to recommend a resolution for the full 21-member commission to consider.

“We are waiting to get more information,” Commissioner Anthony Johnson, who serves on the committee, said after the meeting. “We thought it was a lot more detailed than we could grasp on this short notice.”

Fellow Commissioner D.C. “Jim” Daniel agreed.

“There’s a lot of things for us to consider, and we just didn’t want to be hasty,” Daniel said. “We want to make sure we thoroughly consider our feelings about this. A lot of details hit us cold.”

Committee members hope to get copies of the proposed bottle bill legislation that calls for 5-cent deposits on plastic, glass and aluminum beverage containers. Customers could go to redemption centers to get their money back when they return the empty containers for recycling.

Part of the committee’s concern is that the proposed legislation could negatively affect the contractors now doing a good job to haul and buy the materials, Johnson said.

Committee members also worry that people will only drop by vending-machine redemption centers to get their deposit money back and won’t bother to recycle their cardboard, paper, food cans and other materials that can be dropped off at four unmanned drop off sites the county operates or along with trash at the county’s 14 convenience centers, Johnson said.

“We have conflicting numbers,” Johnson said. “Most of it is speculation on both sides. There’s speculation that this will hurt the stream of recycling we have now.”

Johnson hopes the state will pass some kind of law to increase recycling and cut down on the amount of litter on the roads.

“We definitely need to do something, whether it’s (the bottle bill) or something else,” Johnson added.

Full Tennessean article by Scott Broden here: County Wants to Mull Bottle Bill

The Tennessee Bottle Bill is container deposit legislation that is proposed. The legislation, if successful, would require a five-cent deposit on beverage containers. Currently the recycling rate in Tennessee is 10 percent and the bottle bill is projected to increase the rate to 80 percent.

If passed, Tennessee’s bottle bill will cover aluminum cans, glass bottles and plastic bottles of up to two liters, excluding milk, liquor and wine. This would be similar to the items covered by the other 11 participating states.

The primary contributor to litter in Tennessee is discarded bottles and cans.

During the last three years the three leading container trade groups (Aluminum Association, the Glass Packaging Institute, and the Association of Postconsumer Plastic Recyclers) have changed their position and now support bottle bills because of the success of existing bottle bills.

Recent Action

Return to Returnables

By a decisive vote of 10 to 1 (2 commissioners absent), the Shelby County Commission overwhelmingly endorsed a resolution supporting Tennessee’s container-deposit bill. Thanks to Commissioner Steve Mulroy for sponsoring the resolution, and to the many people who presented at, attended, donated to or otherwise assisted with “Return to Returnables,” a public forum on the legislation held on September 17, 2009 at the Agricenter International.

The Shelby County action brings to ten the number of county commissions that have so far voted on (and all endorsed) a resolution on the bill.

Potential Issues

One aspect of beverage recycling laws that has come into question is the illegal redemption from outside states. Michigan, which offers 10 cents for every can and bottle recycled, has faced issues of smuggling from neighboring states like Ohio, where consumers didn’t pay the deposit when purchased and are collecting money for recycling. None of Tennessee’s neighbor states currently have beverage deposit laws.

Check out this article in the The Memphis Flyer: “The Bottle Battle“

Wikipedia Page: Tennessee Bottle Bill

New York State Department of Environmental Conservation

Water bottles will now be included in New York State’s 5-cent beverage container deposit law after Oct. 31, thanks to a ruling by a judge earlier this month.

U.S. District Court Judge Deborah Batts ruled after a court hearing last week that the expansion would be enacted; she went on to permanently enjoined a provision of the bill that would have required bottlers to have state-specific UPC labels on bottles.

New York becomes the third state this year and sixth overall to include water bottles in its deposit program. Oregon added water bottles Jan. 1 and Connecticut on Oct. 1.

Overall, 11 states have deposit laws that include carbonated soft drinks, beer and water bottles. California, Hawaii and Maine also include non-carbonated beverages such as teas and energy drinks.

“It seems to me that this is certainly a trend now,” Laura Haight, senior environmental associate with the New York Public Interest Research Group said. “We certainly hope that New York will be a trendsetter, and that more states will do this. The environmental benefits of recycling plastic include not only litter reduction, but energy savings and a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. You can get a lot of bang for your buck from deposit laws.”

Eight other states, including Tennessee and Massachusetts, are currently considering bottle bills or extension of bottle bills to include water.

According to an analysis by the Container Recycling Institute (CRI) in Culver City, Calif., the deposit program should increase the number of water bottles recycled in New York from 487 million in 2006 to 2.5 billion in 2010, when the program is in effect for an entire year. Only 14 percent of water bottles in New York were recycled in 2006, compared to a 70 percent recycling rate for soft drinks, according to CRI.

CRI said the additional 2 billion water bottles that are expected to be recycled on an annual basis in New York will keep 163.7 million pounds out of material out of landfills and incinerators, and the energy saved by recycling these additional containers will be enough to provide power to 43,660 households for an entire year.

Water bottles account for 25 percent of all beverage sales in New York state. The expanded bottle bill applies to all water drinks as long as they don’t contain sugar — which means that vitamin drinks, iced teas, sports drink, juices and sugared water drinks are still excluded.

Deposits apply to all beverage containers under one gallon. Bottled water represents 69 percent of all non-carbonated beverages sold in New York.

The bottle bill had been challenged in court in May by the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA), Nestle Waters North America and Polar Corp.

“Now that the deposit is in place, I think we are just about done in Albany,” said Tom Lauria, vice president of communications for IBWA. “We got rid of the New York state-specific UPC code and got our members a lot more time to get ready for this.

A spokeswoman for Nestle said the company “supports the bill, [but] we want to see it expanded further.” The company has said in the past that the exclusion of certain beverages puts bottled water at a price disadvantage, and that it would seek to get the bill amended in the next legislative session.

After a preliminary court hearing last August, Nestle Chairman and CEO Kim Jeffery issued a statement, saying that deposit laws “must apply to all beverages,” including the sports drinks, teas, juices and energy drinks that are excluded from the expanded bottle bill.

Other provisions of the New York law went into effect Aug. 13. The changes increased the handling fee that distributors pay to grocers, convenience stores and redemption centers for handling bottle returns from 2 cent to 3.5 cents — the first increase since 1997.

In addition, 80 percent of the unclaimed nickel deposits in New York — an estimated $115 million annually — will now go to the state, with distributors and bottlers keeping the rest. Previously, distributors and bottlers had kept all of the unclaimed deposits.

Find more information on the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation website

San Jose Says ‘Paper Nor Plastic’ by Trey Granger

When San Jose voted last week to address the use of disposable bags in grocery stores, it didn’t focus solely on plastic like many other bag bans. Starting in 2011, the city will not offer plastic or paper bags in its retail stores.

According to 2008 U.S. Census data, San Jose is the 10th largest city in the U.S., making it the largest city to have a bag ban at all. Paper bags that are made of at least 40 percent recycled content will still be offered, though, but consumers will still be charged a fee per bag.

Mayor Chuck Reed said a regional approach was the only way to effectively deal with the plastic-bag trash that collects on San Jose’s streets and in rural and urban waterways.

San Jose is the largest city in Santa Clara County, and at the press conference announcing the law, other Santa Clara city mayors were in attendance to show their support. San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed said he’s looking for neighboring cities to pass the same law, and also promoted the use of reusable bags as an alternative.

Plastic bags receive more negative attention because they are a major source of marine debris. However, paper bags have a large environmental footprint since it takes four times the energy to make a paper bag than its plastic counterpart.

From a disposal standpoint, both paper and plastic bags are recyclable. However, Earth911’s Local Recycling Search includes almost twice as many locations to recycle plastic bags as paper. This is because many grocery stores already collect plastic bags for recycling, whereas paper bag recycling is generally reserved for curbside programs and recycling centers.

Opponents of the measure are concerned about its effect on local businesses. “This will have a major financial impact on my business and disrupt the shopping patterns of my customers,” said Gian Rossini, owner of the Grocery Outlet store, which only provides plastic or reusable bags to its customers. “We have a very strong (plastic bag) recycling program and really encourage our customers to bring them back to be recycled.”

San Jose’s bag ban will not affect restaurants or non-profits. Its passage is also dependent on an environmental impact study that will be conducted by the city.

See full Earth911 article here: San Jose Says ‘Paper Nor Plastic’ by Trey Granger

Also, see San Jose Business Journal article:  San Jose takes the lead on plastic bag ban

As of Oct 1, 2009, Connecticut’s new bottle bill legislation is in full swing.

Connecticut’s bottle deposit law is not just for soda and beer anymore. In March 2009, Gov. Jodi Rell signed a deficit reduction measure that expands the deposit law, commonly known as a “bottle bill,” to include bottled water. Milk containers are still exempt.

Bottle bills require consumers to pay refundable deposits on certain beverage containers. Connecticut is one of 11 states that have such a law. Since 1980, Connecticut residents have paid a 5-cent deposit on each container of a carbonated beverage. The deposits are redeemed when the containers are returned for recycling.

The expansion of the deposit to bottled water took effect on April 1, 2009. However, manufacturers could apply for a waiver that would give them until Oct. 1, 2009 to make the necessary changes to their bottle labels. The state has granted waivers to about 40 manufacturers, according to The Connecticut Post. The new law also exempts three-liter and larger containers as well as containers made of high-density polyethylene.

The state will keep the unredeemed deposits to help its bottom line. Connecticut officials originally projected that the bottle bill expansion would bring in an additional $3.8 million by the end of June, but that was before the state granted the 40 waivers.

In an interview with the WNPR radio network, Jesse Stratton, a spokeswoman for the Sierra Club’s Connecticut chapter who has been lobbying for the expansion for years, admitted that financial considerations drove the move. But, “this really is the way to most cost effectively and efficiently assure that a very valuable commodity, this PET plastic, is actually recycled, rather than incinerated,” she told the network.

In another interview with WNPR, Craig Stevens, spokesman for the American Beverage Association, which opposed the expansion, dismissed the expanded container deposit law as “a money grab.”

“I think the other side of this is how cynical of a public policy this is,” Stevens added. “The legislature is betting that the citizens don’t recycle.”

Despite excuses, statistics have shown that bottle bill states have a much better percentage of increased recycling and a decrease in littering over non-bottle bill states.

More Details of the Legislation: CT Bottle Bill

Please find the Original Earth911 Article here.

California’s successful Beverage Container Recycling Program is under threat by significant cuts to core recycling programs, such as payments for supermarket-based recycling, payments for curbside recycling and payments to conservation corps recycling. Due to the imbalance, the Department of Conservation was forced to: cut $131 million in funding for local governments, local conservation corps, curbside recycling, recycling market development and other performance-based incentives for recycling; and Increase beverage industry ‘processing fee’ costs by roughly $75 million. Additionally, some 600 California grocery stores are currently unserved by recycling centers, and without relief, they will be obligated to take containers inside their stores.

SB 402 will bring the Beverage Container Recycling Fund back into balance while strengthening recycling.  Specifically, SB 402 will:

• Expand the scope of beverage containers covered by the program to include all container types for existing beverages, regardless of size or material type.
• Accelerate the timeframe for beverage distributors to make CRV payments from 90 to 60 days in order to better align with CRV ‘pay-out’ timeframe (20 days).
• Move the existing 10 cent CRV threshold from containers 24 ounces and larger to containers 20 ounces and larger.
• Reduce, suspend and eliminate non-core program expenditures by $36 million.
• Maintain essential funding for ‘core program’ expenditures.

What can you do? Check out the full legislation documentation and take action here: SB 402 (Wolk) Strengthening California’s Bottle Bill

UPDATE

SB 402 was vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger on Oct 11. Read veto message and CAW response.

UPDATE II

AB 7 in front of Governor Schwarzenegger for signature. Read more here…