Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 1, 1991 TAG: 9102010753
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
I'm a native Virginian who lived and worked for a Fortune 500 company for a number of years, much of it in the great Pacific Northwest. Oregon, under the colorful and exaggerated rhetoric of its late governor, Tom McCall, boastfully became the first state in the Union to enact a bottle bill. Whenever its cost-effectiveness was questioned, McCall would trumpet: "It's a rip-roaring success." The worshipful news media would always take good old Tom at his word, and those who dared question the accuracy of such claims were considered outright liars and villains.
The truth is that bottle bills are expensive; expensive to the gullible consumer who is led down the primrose path by professional environmentalists and made to feel a fuzzy sort of comfort from the feeling of aiding the ecology. Such states as Washington and Idaho thrive on an open recycling market, where such material as aluminum (which can be recycled over and over with tremendous energy savings) can be returned to free-enterprise recycling centers for cash on the barrel-head; no deposits necessary.
With a bottle bill, the only thing the consumer gets is money back, if the empties are returned. It all sounds so simple, but what is really involved is the simple transfer of a nickel or a dime from one pocket to another. For those people living in an open recycling market, there is money to be made. Never mind the profit motive; such programs end up doing a lot more for the environment and reduction in the solid waste stream than any bottle bill could ever accomplish. JOE MOFFATT LEXINGTON
by CNB