For Release: Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Grannis: Updating "Bottle Bill" Is A No-Brainer
"Common Sense" Measure Will Keep Roadsides, Parks and Waterways Cleaner
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Commissioner Pete Grannis today urged support of the "Bigger Better Bottle Bill," saying it would reduce litter, keep millions of containers out of our landfills, help in the fight against global warming and generate badly needed revenue.
"As Governor Paterson has made clear, New York faces a monumental budget deficit and must make many hard choices. But updating New York's 27-year-old Bottle Bill is not one of them," Grannis said. "Expanding the law to cover non-carbonated beverages such as fruit juice, water and sports drinks is long overdue."
Since the original Bottle Bill was enacted in 1982 requiring a five-cent deposit on beer and carbonated drinks, roadside litter has been reduced 70 percent. More than 90 billion containers and 6 million tons of glass, aluminum and plastic have been recycled, resulting in saving more than 50 million barrels of oil and eliminating 5 million metric tons of greenhouse gases - a sum equal to getting 600,000 cars off the road for one year. In his 2009-10 Executive Budget, Governor David A. Paterson has proposed expanding the law to apply to non-carbonated beverages.
"Even a great law needs tuning up," Grannis said. "We need to modernize the Bottle Bill to keep pace with the dramatic changes in the beverage market. When the Bottle Bill was enacted, non-carbonated drinks made up a tiny portion of overall drink sales. Today, they represent more than 25 percent of the market. Unfortunately, the vast majority of these non-deposit bottles end up in landfills and incinerators, or as litter on our roadsides, parks and beaches."
Grannis cited a 2005 study by the Onondaga County Resource Recovery Agency that found that while 80 percent of plastic soda bottles are recycled, just 16 percent of plastic water bottles are recovered.
Grannis delivered his remarks at a news conference on the campus of the Rochester Institute of Technology, home to the NYS Pollution Prevention Institute.
"RIT has a long history of research and scholarship in the areas of sustainability and pollution prevention typified by the work of the DEC's New York State Pollution Prevention Institute," said RIT President Bill Destler. "We are happy to lend our support today to the efforts of
Governor Paterson and Commissioner Grannis to secure passage of the Bigger Better Bottle Bill."
"We urge our legislators to agree to the Governor's plan to update the Bottle Bill in order to help meet the state's extraordinary funding needs, as well as improve bottle recycling rates, create new jobs and directly benefit communities by saving on costs," said Hugh Mitchell, Senior Conservation Chairperson of the Atlantic chapter of the Sierra Club.
"When the Bigger Better Bottle Bill passes, redemption centers across the state will be growing and expanding, creating thousands of new green jobs in the process," said Sheila Rivers, owner of EZ Bottle and Can Returns in Monroe County and chair of the NYS Bottle and Can Redemption Association, which represents redemption centers across the state, most of which are owner-operated small businesses.
Grannis explained that the Governor also has proposed changing the law to address deposits on unredeemed containers.
"Currently, nickels that customers pay on soda and beer containers but never reclaim remain with the beverage manufacturers," Grannis said. "Under the Bigger Better Bottle Bill, the industry would be required to return these funds to the state. This would amount to more than $100 million in revenue per year at a time of enormous financial difficulty."
