Taxpayer Relief in the New 20 Ounce Size

As a kid, whenever I decided to do anything that might mess up our home, whether that was sofa-fort construction or macaroni art, I was required to clean up after myself. The system was very clear: although I was a member of a family, I could not rely on the broader family structure to clean up after me. From start to finish, I was responsible for the things I obtained, used, wasted, and made a mess of.

I don’t think my family was unusual in adopting this cradle-to-cradle principle. It just didn’t make sense to do otherwise, especially when the converse was to be slave to your children’s incessant messes.

Today, I am amazed at how all levels of our government act as overly indulgent parents when it comes to waste, shouldering its burden instead of making producers responsible for the waste their products create. The U.S. generates 409 million tons of residential waste each year, a mere 2% of America’s total waste output. State and local governments in particular, are constantly worrying about how to cope with this ever-increasing waste stream.

Let’s take beverage containers, for example. A recent study shows that of the 192.5 billion aluminum, glass, and plastic beverage containers generated in 1999, 114.0 billion were wasted. It’s not that taxpayer-funded recycling programs are slacking on the job. Over the last few years there has been a dramatic increase in the number and types of beverage containers in the market. So while recycling volumes remain relatively steady, overall recycling rates are declining.

Critics of recycling easily confuse the public with statistics that seem to indicate its failure, and use those statistics to argue that recycling isn’t worth the trouble. Recycling programs should not be thrown away, as recent nay-sayers have suggested. Its benefits are far-reaching and well documented. Recycling conserves natural resources, reduces pollution and energy use, creates jobs, saves taxpayer money by reducing demand on landfills and incinerators, and reduces billions of tons of hazardous waste.

The question is, how do we increase our rates of recovery without relying even more on over-burdened taxpayer-funded programs?

The solution to wasted bottles and cans is simple, if you think of it terms of the family analogy. Children who live in households where they are responsible for their own messes, clean up after themselves much more effectively and responsibly than do those children who don’t have to. Similarly, producers selling in states where they are responsible for collecting and processing beverage containers do an immensely better job recycling than producers selling in states where they don’t have to.

A recent report done by a multi-stakeholder group including recycling businesses, environmental groups, plastics manufacturers, and Coca-Cola, found that deposit systems, which transfer responsibility from taxpayers to producers, result in the highest level of recovery. In 1999, the ten states with deposit laws recycled more containers than all other 40 states combined, and achieved an overall recovery rate of 71.6%, compared to 27.9% in non-deposit states. Our nearest deposit neighbors, Iowa and Michigan, both have beverage container recovery rates above 90%.

This report also concluded that beverage container recycling rates will likely decline in future years in the absence of new container recovery and market development initiatives. Wisconsin is no exception to this trend. Changing markets will insist we use new methods that shift the responsibility for waste off of taxpayers and on to those who control its creation or elimination

Lest you think there are no solutions out there, or that perhaps it is too late for Wisconsin to adopt such a new system, think again. On June 25, 2002, Hawaii passed a bottle and can deposit law much like the ones in place in Iowa and Michigan, making Hawaii the first state in over 16 years to pass such legislation.

Last April, U.S. Sen. James Jeffords (I., VT.) introduced the National Beverage Producer Responsibility Act, which proposed a shift of the responsibility of beverage container waste from taxpayer to producer. This approach would give industry the freedom to design a system that enables it to meet a government mandated beverage container recovery rate of 80%, the level most deposit states currently achieve.

It is time to shift the responsibility of waste in Wisconsin. With an ominous state deficit and municipalities increasingly straining to handle increased waste streams, there has never been a better time. Wisconsin shouldn’t let producers continue to ‘play’ without cleaning up after themselves.

Cassie Wyss

Midwest Organizer
GrassRoots Recycling Network
Madison, Wisconsin