Maine Beverage Industry Targets State's Groundbreaking Bottle Bill

[jpak]

http://www.mpbn.net/Home/tabid/36/ctl/ViewItem/mid/3478/ItemId/15156/Default.aspx

Maine has had a bottle redemption law since 1976, one of only 10 states to have one. Consumers in Maine pay 5 or 15 cents per beverage, depending on the size, which they can recoup if they bring their bottles to a redemption center. That's incentivized Mainers to recycle up to 90 percent of the bottles, keeping them off roadsides and out of landfills. That's estimated to be about four times more than in states without a so-called bottle bills. But the beverage industry says the system is riddled with problems that costs distributors, and ultimately the customer. And they want the state to reconsider its bottle bill.

"Fraud is in the system at a lot of different ways," says Ray Dube. At the Coca-Cola distribution facility in South Portland, Dube oversees the collection of returnables from redemption centers. He says too often, workers find bottles from New Hampshire--which doesn't have a bottle bill and whose bottles aren't labeled as such--that people are trying to pass off as purchases from Maine.

"For the most part, we try to believe everybody is good," Dube says, "but there are a lot of bad apples." Dube says that Thursday's indictments of a couple from Kittery and a Massachusetts man only underscores his point. The three are accused of trying to pass off no-deposit containers purchased out-of-state to net more than $10,000.

The Maine Beverage Association says distributors lose nearly $8 million a year from fraud. The group's spokesman, Newell Augur (above at podium), says distributors are already paying handling fees to redemption centers--up to 4 cents per bottle.

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Maine's Bottle Bill created hundreds of small businesses and jobs throughout the state - it is NOT a job killer.

These are the same assholes that opposed the Bottle Bill back in 1976. They see LePage and the GOP as "litter friendly" stooges to do their bidding.

...and it's part of coordinated campaign to rescind similar bottle bills nationwide...

yup

:thumbsdown:

[shraby]

1. Michigan has a deposit for bottles and cans in the state. I lived

there when it was passed. Within 2 years, the sides of the roads didn't glisten in the sunshine from broken bottles anymore and cans along the side of the road were virtually non-existent.
I was amazed at how quickly the roadsides cleaned up.

[phantom power]

2. FAIL

:thumbsdown:

[saras]

3. It's a good argument for New Hampshire to pass a bottle bill

[jpak]

4. Yup - the hole in the donut

n/t

[Tesha]

5. New Hampshire does a huge business selling beverages to folks from the surrounding states...

...*PRECISELY BECAUSE* we don't have a bottle bill
so our beverages are $0.05/container cheaper. They
come from all around to save those nickels.

We'll *NEVER* pass a bottle bill because we make
money off our neighbors and New Hampshire couldn't
give a damn about keeping their roadways clean.
Working on behalf of the community is the sort
of thing *DEMOCRATS AND SOCIALISTS* do, not what
Republicans, Libertarians, and most-importantly,
*CAPITALISTS* do!

Tesha