Amended Testimony in Support of Resolution
Recommending Expansion of Bottle Laws in
Marjorie J. Clarke, Ph.D. (mclarke@hunter.cuny.edu)
On behalf of Manhattan Citizens’ Solid Waste Advisory Board (MCSWAB)
Thank you for having
this hearing regarding the proposed expansion of bottle laws in
Dispelling
Industry Claims
At the hearing industry
made a number of claims that I need to address.
The packaging industry
wants to make any business decisions it wants regarding the design of its
packaging, even if it costs municipalities billions of dollars in increased
collection and management costs, and even if the disposal harms human health
and the environment. The industry reps
were smirking at the prospect that they could raise the price of disposables
and still sell them. This indicates that
not only was the public saddled with this extra cost, consumers have been
paying for the extra costs of the natural resources and their refinement made
necessary by the decision to make disposables, and also for their collection
and disposal via increased taxes for building incinerators and landfills.
Back in 1960 we had a
refillable deposit system, which conserves more resources than recycling, and
generates less pollution in the process.
If, since 1960 the packaging industry had to pay municipalities for the
costs of the business decision to develop and market disposable packaging, it
might not have been so eager to make this wasteful decision. This is an environmental and economic
externality that other industries are prevented, by law, from
perpetrating. These economic and
environmental costs of disposal passed along to city solid waste departments,
was the first windfall to the packaging industry. Councilmember Koppell
mentioned the second windfall, of $1 billion in unclaimed nickels that was
handed to the packaging industry since the Bottle Law went into effect. It's no wonder that industry showed up in
droves. They want to preserve their
protected status.
Meanwhile solid waste
budgets have skyrocketed with the increasing amounts of disposable
packaging. According to Franklin
Associates / USEPA's waste characterization study [1], beer and
soft drink glass bottles increased from 1.4 million tons in 1960 to 5.58
million tons in 1970, remaining relatively stable since then. At the start of that period there was a
negligible quantity of aluminum beer and soft drink cans and during the entire
period there were no plastic soft drink bottles.
Industry has made other
claims that don't hold water. It claimed
high costs for container transport, but much of the deposit containers are
backhauled to the bottlers. Industry
also claims there is a hardship to small stores to implement the bottle
laws. While this may be true in theory,
I have not encountered a small store (e.g. deli) that will take my deposit
bottles or refund the nickel, so there is little impact. Despite this, the state bottle program still
recovers nearly 70% of the bottles and cans, but the City's recycling rate was
under 20%. Any inequities can be
resolved by other means (e.g., change in regulation of small stores, additional
redemption centers, etc.) and are not good arguments for expanding the bottle
law.
One retailer argued that
the average time it takes for his distributor to pick up his bottles and cans
is 21 days. Does this mean that he only
receives new deliveries that often? One of
the retailers who represents the retail industry told me afterwards that this
is an isolated case. Again, it does not
support not expanding the bottle law.
Benefits
of claiming unredeemed container deposits
For years it has been
recognized that the unclaimed nickels resulting from those beverage consumers,
who do not redeem beverage containers, has resulted in a windfall in the
millions of dollars to beverage bottlers.
If unredeemed deposits and the sale of redeemed bottles and cans are
considered,
Benefits
of expanding the list of deposit containers
Increased
Recycling Rates
In January 2000,
The ten states with ‘bottle bills’ and deposits on beverage containers recycle 80 percent of their plastic soda bottles; the 40 states without deposits recycle only 10 to 20 percent of their bottles. [5]
Decreased
Litter
Including additional containers in the deposit
program will also have the effect of decreasing litter of those
containers. In
Society does not invest in “complete litter
removal” from beaches, roads, or other locations. Thus, container recycling
will reduce human injuries due to contact with old or broken containers. In the
year after
slightly.
Littered containers also cause problems for farmers and recreational
cyclists. Broken glass on roadways
causes flat tires on farm tractors and bicycles, costing time and money.[8]
A detailed report by
Franklin Associates, Ltd. estimated that the State's Bottle Law reduced the
volume of discarded beverage containers by 72 percent annually, from 47.5
million cubic feet to 13.1 million cubic feet.
The study estimated that the 34.1 million cubic feet saved by the
deposit law was approximately equal to all of the municipal waste generated by
a city the size of
Benefits of banning deposit containers from landfills
Iowa’s 95% redemption rate is, not only due to the inclusion of wine and
liquor in addition to the traditional bottle bill items, but also to the fact
that deposit containers have been banned from landfills since 1990. [9]
Benefit of increasing deposit to 10 cents
A
comparison of states having deposits of 2.5 cents, 5 cents, and 10 cents for
all or parts of their programs shows that the higher deposits are associated
with higher redemption rates.
Environmental Benefits [10]
A
recent EPA report (identified in the notes to Table 4-1) provides data on
lifecycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions due to recycling rather
than landfilling. Using the EPA data one can show
that, in 1999, recycling beverage containers reduced GHG emissions by 4,093,000
metric tons of carbon equivalent (MTCE), or about 79 pounds for each of 103.9
million households in the
Besides
reducing GHG emissions, recycling beverage containers generally reduces
emissions of criteria air pollutants, airborne toxics, and waterborne
pollutants and toxics. These additional emissions reductions due to the
recycling of beverage containers in 1999 are shown in Table 4-2 from the BEAR
report.
Energy Savings
Energy
consumption in manufacturing and transportation is reduced by using recycled
materials as feedstock. For the glass,
plastics and aluminum from recovered beverage containers, these energy savings
can be estimated using EPA data on the energy requirements for products
produced from both virgin and recycled materials. The results of this analysis show that, in
1999, recycling of beverage containers reduced energy consumption by about 148
trillion Btu’s. This is the energy
content of about 32 million barrels of oil.
The specific reductions in energy use due to aluminum, glass and
plastics recycling are shown in Table 4-1. There is an additional, indirect
energy benefit due to the recycling of plastic containers. Plastic containers are made from oil and
hence, have a substantial energy content.
Recycling rather than discarding these containers reduced the need for
oil or gas extraction to provide the feedstock for virgin resins, and so freed
up oil and gas for future use. In 1999,
recycled plastic containers had the same energy content as about 3 million barrels
of oil.
Land and Natural Resource Use Benefits
Container recovery and recycling avoids the
natural resource use required to create virgin feedstocks,
preserving them for future generations.
And since landfilling is the dominant method
of disposal, and is expected to account for most of the growth in disposal
through 2005,[11]
recycling used beverage containers should reduce the growth in waste disposal
and so avoids landfilling. Analysis shows that landfilling the containers recycled in 1999 would have
required the use of about 20 million cubic yards of landfill space. A single
landfill of this size, with a depth of 300 feet, would cover an area of about
40 acres.
Benefits to the Economy
Recycling creates a significant number of
jobs, particularly in the manufacturing sector.
Recycling may also result in some job losses, in waste disposal and
virgin material extraction and processing.
However, available studies suggest that recycling is likely to result in
net additional direct employment on a nationwide basis. Recycling is particularly effective in
providing local economic benefits, as shown by a
recent study of Massachusetts.[12] Additionally,
a recent study conducted for the US EPA Office of Solid Waste, Macroeconomic
Importance of Recycling and Remanufacturing, stresses the economic importance of recycling in improving the
competitiveness of American industry world-wide, and so preserving
manufacturing employment in the US.
Lastly, increasing the number of containers eligible for redemption
provides more jobs for scavengers.
Benefits of Refillable bottles
The EPA prefers source reduction, which
includes reuse, over all other waste management options including
recycling. This is because, in the EPA’s
view, the best way to manage waste is to simply not generate it in the first
place, so that it doesn’t need to be collected, treated, or disposed. The benefits the EPA cites include reducing
energy use, greenhouse gas emissions, and other environmental impacts.[2]
In the case of beverage
containers, the environmental benefits of reuse are quite clear. Refilling
avoids all of the environmental emissions, energy use and natural resource use
associated with container production from virgin or recycled feedstocks. It also
avoids the landfilling of discarded containers. In the U.S. refillables
provided local jobs in washing and refilling containers. There are environmental impacts associated
with container reuse. However, as noted in an article by Robert Steuteville in the September/October 1992 issue of In
Business, life cycle studies
have shown that refillables are the most
environmentally benign beverage containers, even taking into account the
transportation back to the plant, and the washing that is required for
reuse. A number of Canadian provinces
provide deposits for refillable containers, particularly beer bottles.
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Endnotes