AIS-baneum Fanrtng.Satufday? duly r «r k W&7 n \ What Would Bottle Bill Mean To Beverage Manufacturers, Other Industries? Last Of A Series Editor’s Note: Are there alter natives to a state bottle bill? Answers are conflicting. But experts who have studied litter problems in rural areas under stand the difficulties of using a “no bottle bill” approach. Bottle bills in other states have proven widely successful in reducing bottle and can litter. Now far mers can have their voices heard through a petition they can send to their legislators. The statew ide organization that supports farmers and bottle bill legisla tion says it’s about time. ANDY ANDREWS Lancaster Farming Staff PERKASIE (Bucks Co.) Rep. Paul Clymer (R-145th) believes the answer to the prob lems of bottles and cans in Pen nsylvania farm fields lies in Texas. That’s right, Texas. The Lone Star State has pioneered a program that targets not the industries that produce bottles and cans which end up in fields, but the people responsible for putting the trash there in the first place. Within the next year, Clymer indicated his office will help coor dinate a workshop to discuss a program spearheaded by the Texas Department of Transportation that targets what they believe are the purveyors of trash in fields 18-35-year-old males. The Texas program makes heavy use of radio and TV ads that bring in respectable role models {o essentially tell the guys “don’t mess with Texas don’t litter," said Clymer. Texas has no bottle bill. But, according to Clymer, the Texas transportation department insists that the campaigns, funded through the department with finan cial assistance from the bottling, distributor, and retailer industries, actually work. “Irresponsible people do litter.” said Clymer. “This program is an attempt to solve the problems of litter in fields without having to put the responsibility on the people not responsible for the problems to begin with.” Clymer, who did not have a specified date for the Texas prog ram workshop as of presstime, believes education is the key. However, opponents of the Texas plan wonder about the “nontarget” audience females, those under 18 or over 35, or those who simply don’t see or hear the media spots. Clymer actually co-sponsored Pennsylvania’s Bottle Bill H.B. 922 with Rep. Arthur Hershey (R-13th) and S 3 co-sponsors. In order for a Pennsylvania program that is modeled on the Texas cam paign to work, “we need people from Texas to come in” and show how it can be done successfully. Does education work? Just ask George Moyer, dairyman from Myerstown. Education, noted Moyer, is not enough. “If education would solve the problem, we wouldn’t have a drug problem, either.” he said. Or ask Peter Spendelow, waste reduction specialist with the Ore gon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). The Oregon DEQ has recently completed a study that examined 144 roadside litter sites. Spendelow. working in Oregon With Petition , Farmers Can Have Voices Heard (the first state to pass bottle bill legislation in 1971), said the study, patterned after a 1979 study he conducted as a graduate student working at the University of Washington, could show similar results. One result of the 1979 study showed that containers marked with a deposit refund “dis appeared from the site,” compared to nondeposit items, said Spendelow. Results of the recent study will be available in a few months. Oregon’s Bottle Bill has been highly successful, according to studies by the Glass Packaging Institute. The institute announced that the 1995 U.S. glass recycling rate remained at 37 percent Another institute, the Container Recycling Institute, responded by releasing the results of a survey showing that the glass recycling rate is more than twice as high in bottle bill states compared to those without a bottle bill. According to the survey, approximately two million of the total of four million tons of glass recycled in the U.S. in 1994 came from the states with a deposit system. The U.S. lags far behind seven countries, who recycle more than 47 percent of their glass contain ers. The U.S. and three other Euro pean nations recycle glass bottles and jars at the rate of 37 percent or less. That equates to millions of tons l of glass not showing up in faim I fields, destroying equipment and J cows, and costing farmers millions »! of dollars in repairs, animal | replacement, and wasted j productivity. -I But the Pennsylvania Soft Drink I Association, lobbyist for 33 soft * drink bottlers with facilities in | Pennsylvania, opposes any bottle | bill. They claim the passage of the . | bill will put jobs in jeopardy. I John P. Kolb Jr., vice president I of human resources of the Phi- J ladelphia Coca Cola Bottling Company, testified in April at the | Pennsylvania House State Govern- | ment Committee Public Hearing I on H.B. 922, Pennsylvania’s prop- J osed bottle bill. Speaking on behalf of the association, Kolb said ( the Philadelphia company he | works for is the second largest | minority owned business in the I United States and the seventh | largest Coca Cola bottler. Kolb noted that curbside recy- ( cling, as set forth in Act 101, The | Municipal Waste Planning, Recy- I cling, and Waste Reduction Act, I “is more effective than forced J deposits. “Forced deposit systems and comprehensive recycling are not compatible,” Kolb told the com mittee. “Why? Because beverage containers are an integral part of the curbside recycling programs. Soft drink containers tend to have a high scrap value. The revenue generated from this high value helps to offset the cost of collec tion and recycling of materials that are not quite as valuable.” Kolb, citing a study out of Falls Church. Va., noted that beverage containers represent less than 20 percent of all recyclables collected at a typical recycling program, but generate more than 70 percent of the curbside program’s revenue. “By requiring consumers to comply with another system for the recycling of their containers, revenue will be lost, which will result in a more costly curbside program.” Kolb told the committee that a “forced deposit system would have a detrimental impact on both the commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the soft drink industry” in the state. He noted that loss in sales tax revenue was “immediately appa rent” in other stales that enacted forced deposit systems. In a Can Manufacturers Institute study, in 1984, the year after the last bottle bill law was enacted, “the nine deposit states lost an esti mated $2B million in revenue derived from the excise taxes as a result of decreased sales under the deposit laws. The federal govern ment lost $4l million.” He said New York lost $9.2 mil lion in tax revenue the first year the state’s deposit law went into effect r- THE UNDERSIGNED REGISTERED PENNSYLVANIA VOTER! RETURNABLE BEVERAGE CONTAINER LAW, WHICH WOULD PI DEPOSIT ON BOTTLES AND CANS, IN ORDER TO HELP KEEP OUI STREETS AND RURAL ROADS CLEAN. NAME 10 . 11 . 12 . 13 . 14 . 15 . DATE SUBMITTED PLEASE MAIL THIS PETITION FOR TABULATION TO THE PENNSYLVi BUREAU, GOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS DIVISION, 510 S. 31ST STRHH 8736, CAMP HILL, PA 17001-8736. and beverage sales for the state decreased 5.6 percent With the passage of the bill, cost of soft drinks could rise by more than $1 per case, Kolb noted. The result possible job losses. Kolb pointed to a 1984 study by the Can Manufacturers Institute that indicated in Connecticut 556 employees lost their jobs in the first year of the law’s enactment. Also testifying before the com mittee was Rick Bloomingdale, secretary-treasurer of the AFL CIO, representing a coalition of labor, businesses, and organiza tions who oppose the concept of forced deposit legislation. The coalition includes various unions and the state soft drink association, brewing companies, distributors, and others. The coalition repre sents approximately 50,000 Pen nsylvania workers involved in the ADDRESS 1 • ' '.v •/.. < > packaging, production, and trans portation and sales of beverages, noted Bloomingdale. In the soft drink association’s position paper, the association insists that “major job losses in the can and glass industries can be traced directly to forced deposit laws in other states. For example. Connecticut lost 556 jobs and Michigan lost 800 skilled jobs in the first full year from the enact ment of forced deposit laws.” George Moyer disagrees with that argument Moyer, a dairy far mer in Myerstown, a staunch prop onent of the bill, said many jobs were lost simply to factory automation. "Job loss is not going to hap* pen,” said Spendelow of Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality. Actually, jobs will be created at reclamation sites, at the SUBMITTED BY i » j yi u r*\' CO
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