It Could Be Law Profile of a Vermont Bill

Author: Peter Faroni

Representative Betty Nuovo (D-Middlebury) has proposed a bill to the State House of Representatives to increase the refund on cans and bottles from five to 10 cents. On a recent walk near her home, Nuovo was inspired to act. "The other day, just on a half-mile of the road I live on, I picked up a dollar's worth of bottles," she said. "They are all over the place, because nobody's picking them up. Nobody's bothering to bring them back because they're five cents."
Cathy Stacy, administrator for the Vermont Beverage Container Law for the state's Solid Waste Division, noted that Vermonters have been returning cans and bottles for deposits at the same rate they did in 1972 when the law was first passed. "It hasn't changed that much," she said, but also noted there are many new beverages not covered by the bottle law.
The bill proposed by Nuovo, which has garnered support from many fellow lawmakers, would not only increase the return on the current recyclables, but would also add new containers to the list of those eligible for refunds, including wine, juice, iced tea and Snapple bottles.
Advocates for a higher deposit argue that inflation alone since 1972 justifies an increase from a nickel to a dime. Furthermore, a higher payback for returning bottles and cans would provide an incentive to keep the roads cleaner, supporters say, and would benefit the state's economy. A pristine environment helps tourism and recycling decreases the expense of landfills.
Several lawmakers, as well as beverage distributors and grocers, have expressed their opposition to the proposed bill. They point to the fact that the consumer would pay for the increase in the deposit when purchasing the product, the way the current five-cent deposit works. Both beverage distributors and grocers argue that a deposit increase would hurt their businesses and consumers. They maintain that better curbside recycling is the answer.
Grocers oppose the increase because they say it will drive more business across Vermont borders. New Hampshire doesn't have any deposit on bottles and cans, while both New York and Massachusetts have a nickel deposit. If Vermont's deposit increased to a dime, grocers fear loss of business to those states.
Legislative supporters of the deposit increase counter that argument by noting that Vermonters get their money back when they return the cans and bottles. Consumers then shouldn't have a financial incentive to buy outside the state.
Michigan is the lone state to push through a dime deposit. Matt Fletcher, recycling and composting coordinator for the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, acknowledged that the higher deposit has resulted in a problem with "container migration." This phenomenon occurs when consumers take a bottle or can on which they paid a nickel deposit into Michigan for a dime redemption.
The "Seinfeld effect," made famous by Kramer and Newman's journey from New York to Michigan in a can-filled mail truck, results in losses for retailers who have to pay out deposits on containers that they did not sell. Fletcher said monitoring fraudulent out-of-state containers is a difficult task and noted that some grocery stores take in double the number of cans they sell. Retailers along Michigan's southern border have reported business losses as high as 25 percent.
In order to mitigate this problem, proponents of the bottle bill in Vermont say the real answer would be a uniform regional policy: eliminating deposit differences to prevent interstate container migration. Nuovo supports this regional coalition.
Rep. William Johnson (R-Canaan), chairman of the House of Natural Resources Committee, currently opposes the bill to increase the deposit, but said he would support a regional solution. Johnson sees the lack of a deposit in New Hampshire as a major impediment to creating a successful bottle return program. "Rather than concentrating on our own legislation, maybe we should put together a regional task force," he said.
U.S. Senator Jim Jeffords (I-Vt.) sees a national bottle bill as the solution. Over the past decade he has introduced and continually pursued this approach. The National Bottle Bill, however, has failed to gain enough momentum to pass Congress.
Nuovo concedes that it is unlikely that the bottle legislation will go anywhere this session. Representatives note that there are other issues that are taking priority at the moment. Though it has gone by the wayside for the time being, proponents of the new bottle bill will continue to push for recycling reform in 2004.