For years, "bottle bills" have been floating around the Capitol as a way to reduce litter and encourage recycling. Now, legislators are again looking at the issue.
For more politics news, click here
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- For years, "bottle bills" have been floating around the Capitol as a way to reduce litter and encourage recycling. Now, legislators are again looking at the issue.
At a joint meeting Thursday of the House Judiciary and Finance committees, delegates heard a pro-bottle bill presentation by John Ferrari, president of California operations for the recycling company NexCycle.
Under a proposal sponsored by Delegate Barbara Fleischauer, D-Monongalia, consumers would pay a 10-cent fully refundable deposit on beverage containers like bottles and cans. Milk containers would be exempt.
People would get their deposit back when they took them to a redemption site to be recycled. The state would receive the cash from unclaimed deposits.
Beverage containers make up 40 percent to 60 percent of litter, Ferrari told lawmakers. The 11 states that have bottle bills have greatly cut down on their litter, he said.
Such laws also get people into the recycling mindset, he said: "It's a behavior change."
Supporters also say the bill would spur growth in the recycling industry, because workers will be needed to run redemption centers and haul recyclables.
For more politics news, click here
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- For years, "bottle bills" have been floating around the Capitol as a way to reduce litter and encourage recycling. Now, legislators are again looking at the issue.
At a joint meeting Thursday of the House Judiciary and Finance committees, delegates heard a pro-bottle bill presentation by John Ferrari, president of California operations for the recycling company NexCycle.
Under a proposal sponsored by Delegate Barbara Fleischauer, D-Monongalia, consumers would pay a 10-cent fully refundable deposit on beverage containers like bottles and cans. Milk containers would be exempt.
People would get their deposit back when they took them to a redemption site to be recycled. The state would receive the cash from unclaimed deposits.
Beverage containers make up 40 percent to 60 percent of litter, Ferrari told lawmakers. The 11 states that have bottle bills have greatly cut down on their litter, he said.
Such laws also get people into the recycling mindset, he said: "It's a behavior change."
Supporters also say the bill would spur growth in the recycling industry, because workers will be needed to run redemption centers and haul recyclables.
"This is a job-creating bill," said Gary Zuckett, director of the West Virginia Citizen Action Group, which has long pushed for the law.
A coalition of groups against the plan - including the state's beverage, beer wholesalers, and retailers associations - is circulating a memo calling the bill "a massive tax increase and job killer."
They say it will send shoppers to border states that do not have bottle bills, cutting into retail sales and tax revenue in West Virginia. They also say it could lead to fraud, with residents of other states coming in to collect refunds for deposits they never paid.
Greg Sayre of the Association of Independent & Professional Recyclers, which is part of that coalition, said the program would be too costly for the state.
He also said paper makes up far more of the waste stream than drink containers, and that rural residents would be inconvenienced because they'd have farther to drive to redemption sites.
Delegate Kelli Sobonya, R-Cabell, said she's still studying the bill. While she supports recycling, she said she's worried about how it could impact businesses such as hotels, restaurants and bars.
"I'm just concerned about the cost," she said.
Reach Alison Knezevich at alis...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1240.
Post a comment
You'd solve the litter problem in a couple of days.
Out-of-staters, the disabled or old etc., couldn't be forced to do the community service, so you'd probably have to offer a cash payout option for everyone, of say DOUBLE THE FINE.
The people that are unable or unwilling to pay the fine could do DOUBLE THE COMMUNITY SERVICE time.
Suggestion:
1.Reduce litter, Triple the fines for littering, use prisoners to pick up, can you say chain gang?
2.Encourage recycling - require trash collectors to place customer seperated(that would be you and me) trash in seperate locations. That way everyone helps out. The trash collectors would also profit from this at a later time, as now when there is a market for say, used glass, they will be able to easily retrieve and sell.
This could be put in place immediately with no increase in government.