Letters supporting a West Virginia Bottle Bill

Feb. 22, 2008
Honorable Senators and Delegates,

I am asking you to support the Bottle Bill again this year. We in this great state of WV need to clean it up and this bill would certainly help with a large portion of the problem. Being the age I am, I can remember going to the grocery store with the empty bottles to get my 2 cents and enjoy that "penny candy" as a result. With the price of gas today, I don't think people will drive extra miles to save 5 or 10 cents. If you are aware of unforseen problems with this bill please let me know what they are.

Thanks for any help you can contribute,
Janice LaRue
Mineral County Commission

Letter to WV DEP and the governor:

Termination of WV Adopt-a-Highway Participation

Ms. Shahan:

With great sadness, I am informing you that Old Otter Holler Farm will terminate its five-year affiliation with the West Virginia Adopt-a-Highway program in protest of the failure of our state legislature to pass a Bottle Bill for the fifth year in a row. Even more incredible, I sent e-mails and letters this past spring to our governor, my WV Senate District 10 representatives, my WV House of Delegates District 26 representative, and other key legislators expressing my concern for the Bottle Bill and only got one reply via e-mail…from Mr. Guills who thanked me for my cleanup efforts and said he would look into the Bill. Not only is it disgraceful that our elected officials favor corporate special interest over the needs of the state, citizens, and environment, but also that they don’t even acknowledge their constituents who volunteer their time and energy year after year to help keep the state from turning into an open dump. I’m really looking forward to the next election.

Sincerely,
Thomas Key

Martinsburg Journal
May 17, 2007

Can't always rely on volunteers

Click here to view a scan of this LTE

Register-Herald
Mar 20, 2007

Preserve our resources as a legacy for children

I appreciate very much your paper’s courageous far-sighted championing of our beautiful outdoors. Too few will speak for our forests and streams. Your editorial in support of The Bottle Bill that could reduce littering by over 70 percent, and speaking for water quality protection as you have in your Feb. 24 editorial, are reflections of citizen values today, and the nurturing of them. We can be thankful for your paper, perhaps we will get the Bottle Redemption Bill next year and turn our “throw-away society” toward sustainability.

I appreciate your sending a reporter, Mannix Porterfield, just a dandy fellow, to cover E-Day at the Capitol. He courteously interviewed me about water quality, and the Trout Unlimited organization’s interest in preserving it. The environment underlies the economy and its degradation is very short sighted. Trout presence is rare, and limited to only our purest streams. Their presence defines an unspoiled watershed as nothing else does. Each one of West Virginia’s approximately 500 native brook streams, each perhaps only three miles long, extends a perception of pristineness even beyond the watershed, throughout a region, they are nearby.

Over the years we have seen their quiet and tragic loss. We must preserve what we have left. It is a fine legacy our children will treasure.

Don Gasper
Buckhannon

Under the auspices of the West Virginia Adopt-a-Highway program, Old Otter Holler Farm and Friends have picked up several tons of litter over the last five years along a scenic section of Old Lowell Road between Pence Springs and Talcott, nearly 50 percent of which has been glass, plastic, and aluminum beverage containers.

The “Bottle Bill” is currently under consideration by our elected officials in Charleston and is in danger of not passing for the fourth time, due primarily to special interest influence.

I encourage everyone to learn more about the Bottle Bill at www.wvcag.org, and how its passage would dramatically reduce litter, reduce the amount of garbage going to our landfills, increase recycling rates, save taxpayer money, and create jobs in West Virginia. Please e-mail, call, or write your senators and delegates, insisting they support the bill, to protest this special interest influence that is pandemic in our state as well as at the national level.

Old Otter Holler Farm will no longer participate in the West Virginia Adopt-a-Highway program until the bill becomes law. I also encourage civic groups and other volunteers participating in the program to withhold services, sending a clear message to our elected officials in Charleston — either help support our efforts to keep this great state clean, or support special interest and watch our highways and rivers become open dumps.

Thomas Key
Pence Springs

Charleston Gazette
Jan. 28, 2007

Bottle law will reduce litter

Editor:

This year, like last, a bottle bill has been introduced early in both legislative chambers. Last year it did not become law because the general wisdom of the Legislature did not move it along. Hopefully these reservations can be addressed and changed, and the newly elected legislators might assist.

A redeemable-bottle law would reduce our growing litter problem by 80 percent.

Some out-of-state bottlers do not want to see this happen here. Our “friends” Coke, Bud, etc., are spending big money to stop it. However, it is very much in our interest. Many citizens recognize the timeliness of this bill and support it. Dozens of county commissions and development authorities do. All the churches, the environmental groups, the Farm Bureau, etc., do.

Experience in other states indicates that 20 percent of bottles will remain as litter and not be redeemed, and then generating perhaps $20 million annually from the most careless of our citizens. This law would generate its own revenue to solve problems and create jobs everywhere.

The 80 percent of us who would like to see unlittered roadsides, streams and hillsides will be redeeming our bottles, and it will not cost us a cent. Perhaps more important, by adding this needed dimension to our recycling effort, citizens will have taken another significant step out of society’s unsustainable throwaway mind-set.

Donald C. Casper
Chairman
Upshur County Litter Control Committee

‘Bottle Bill’ no tax; it’s a good idea

Editor:

The “Bottle Bill” being considered by the Legislature has been called a hidden tax. This is not true. It simply requires consumers to pay a dime deposit when buying certain kinds of beverages. When consumers return the empty containers, the dime deposit will be refunded. The empties will be recycled. This will reduce the amount of waste in our roads and streams.

The only money that will be generated by this program will be the unclaimed deposit refunds, to be used to support redemption/recycling centers and programs.

The legislation can be read on the West Virginia Citizen Action Group Web site (www.wvcag.org). Everyone who wants to learn about this issue should visit the site.

Older readers might remember that we used to pay a refundable deposit on glass bottles. It was promoted by the beverage industry because it was cheaper for them to sanitize and reuse bottles than to purchase new ones.

Why is the industry against this recycling proposal? Corporations are afraid of losing a little money if some consumers drive to other states to buy beverages. But in the eleven states that have “Bottle Bills,” this effect has been temporary.

With the price of gasoline, how many West Virginians will drive out of their way to avoid a refundable deposit?

Tim Dent
St. Albans

Bottle bill would benefit W.Va.

Editor:

In response to the commentary “Bottle bill a bad idea,” the bill would be a deposit, not a tax. It could possibly raise the price a little, but they raise the price of cigarettes and people still buy them.

 

As far as the roadside litter issue goes, I don’t believe the figure of 6 percent is correct for containers. I belong to Adopt-A-Highway. I clean up a two-mile section of a local road in Lincoln County. I bring all litter back to my house and separate it, weigh it, and recycle it.

I have been doing this for nine years. I have kept a record of all pickups I do and I took four years out of the total and it showed 47 percent to 50 percent of the weight picked up as containers.

As a proud American, I think we need to learn how to recycle and not just throw things out on the road or send them to landfills.

Container deposits will create jobs for the entire state of West Virginia. Where do people think the road litter will go if its not picked up and recycled?

Howland M. Sharpe
Sod

Bottle bill would help West Virginia

I'm writing in favor of the passage of a bottle bill in West Virginia to promote a more sustainable future.

We all know that a bottle bill would be good for West Virginia, as it has been for the 11 other states that currently have some form of this legislation, as it's the most effective law ever adopted to increase recycling and reduce litter.

It protects the environment, creates good local jobs for the unemployed, allows recycling goals to be met or exceeded, discourages roadside litter and protects valuable landfill space for non-recyclables. This is truly a win-win for everyone.

I hope the beverage bottling industry and the unsustainable big-box conglomerates don't spend too much to defeat our bottle bill, but instead choose to work with the environmental groups to find an agreement that is acceptable to both sides to ensure an orderly transition when the law is finally passed.

I encourage all citizens and businesses to support the West Virginia bottle bill, as it will bring positive attention to the Mountain State in the eyes of all America.

John Christensen
Spring Mills

A 10-cent deposit will affect litterers

The Daily Mail's Dec. 21 editorial, "$100 million out of pocket," made the following statements:

"Two generations of Americans have since been raised with an anti-littering ethos."

"It is doubtful that a 10-cent tax on bottles and cans will change hard-core litterers any more than hefty fines for littering have."

Are you kidding? Do you think there is not a littering problem in West Virginia?

Ask the Adopt-a-Highway program manager how many tons of trash are picked up by volunteers each year. This doesn't account for all the tons of trash that don't get picked up and remain a scar on our landscape.

Even if hard-core litterers continue to throw their containers out the window, I guarantee there will be some enterprising mountaineers picking up the bottles and cans to turn in for deposit and make a few extra bucks.

Maybe the Daily Mail editor needs to get out of the office a little more.

Geary Weir
Webster Springs

Bottle bill would clean up the state

I respond to the Daily Mail's Dec. 21 editorial, "Legislators shouldn't burden their constituents with a bottle bill."

I have been picking up trash as part of two adopt-a-highway projects in Summers County for at least 15 years.

I have coordinated both programs and I know that trash happens.

It happens because people do not want to be caught with open alcohol containers in their vehicles.

It happens because once used, the container has no value, and out it goes.

It happens almost as much as it did 15 years ago.

But the load is not as large as it was 15 years ago due to the volunteers who risk life and limb three times a year to clean up after those who litter.

If you get hurt during this volunteer effort, it is you who must pay the doctor, not the state.

We had a near miss with a moving truck that did not slow down last year, and that person will no longer be part of our group due the danger involved.

We need a bottle bill to help retrain those who litter and make them understand that containers have value.

We need a bottle bill so we can recycle more plastic and glass.

There is a business that will buy all of West Virginia's used glass, as he does in surrounding states. Recycling is good for our lives and good for mother earth -- cleaner air, cleaner water and cleaner land.

Who benefits from clean highways? Tourism, of course -- shops, hotels, restaurants, stores and all of us who like to see a beautiful state kept that way.

Support a bottle bill and you support sustainable living, a cleaner environment and renewable resources.

Yes, this is 2006 and we need new approaches and new methods of dealing with our waste stream.

Mark Blumenstein
Alderson

Bottle bill is a no-brainer

I visit your fair state frequently and wonder how people could put a price on the beauty of West Virginia.

It is hard, however, to ignore the rampant littering, which is an eyesore and dangerous to children and wildlife.

It seems to me that the bottle bill proposed here and used in other forward-looking states is a win-win solution. Even if the 10 cents on a bottle were a tax, would it not be worth it to curb the littering?

But the 10 cents is refunded (and maybe a source of pocket change for enterprising youngsters). Seems like a no-brainer.

Joyce D'Auria
Palm Harbor, Fla.
 

The Daily Mail claimed in a Dec. 21 editorial that our legislators should not burden their constituents with a bottle bill.

With the long list of government agencies, civic groups and private individuals supporting a bottle bill in West Virginia, surely the Daily Mail will allow more evidence before declaring that a bottle bill is a burden.

I challenge the West Virginia Oil Marketers and Grocers Association's reference that beverage containers make up only 8.5 percent of our highway litter. Plastic beverage containers may weigh only a few ounces each, but get a bag filled with discarded glass beer bottles and you soon learn how big the problem is.

Discarded beverage containers are everywhere.

A deposit is just that, and will be returned to those who return the containers. Let's allow open debate, and place a burden on both sides to present evidence to support their side of the bottle bill.

Perhaps the 10-cent deposit should be more, or maybe less. Perhaps we need to look at vending machines vs. recycling centers to take back the empties and provide tokens toward our next purchase.

Perhaps we need to study our own history and ask what worked for those of us who remember the bottle deposit in West Virginia in the 1960s.

Paul E. Hamrick

Clarksburg

The Daily Mail's Dec. 21 editorial opposing a bottle bill really missed the boat.

A bottle bill would place a 10-cent deposit on beverage containers, and would thereby encourage recycling and discourage litter.

This is a law that actually works well and is now in effect in many other states. It works by providing a mild incentive to change the behavior of consumers.

With a 10-cent deposit, people will think twice before tossing the can or bottle out the window. When they stop throwing bottles out the window, they stop throwing other litter items out too. The data is absolutely convincing.

No other program works to encourage recycling and reduce litter as well as a bottle bill.

The editorial argued that putting a 10-cent deposit on containers was "using an elephant gun to dispatch a gnat."

What bottle bill opponents suggest as an alternative is to increase enforcement of litter laws. The current fine for littering is $500, but it is rarely imposed.

A $500 fine is appropriate, but if it is rarely used, it is not much of a deterrent.

With a 10-cent deposit, the deterrent is applied every time the person litters. A 10-cent penalty that is applied every time is a much better deterrent than a $500 fine that almost never gets enforced.

That fine is an elephant gun that misses the target. The bottle bill works, and I encourage our legislators and Gov. Joe Manchin to adopt one during the 2007 session of the Legislature.

James Kotcon
Morgantown

Kotcon is a member of the Sierra Club's West Virginia chapter.

Bottle bill would reduce street litter

Editor:

I encourage all readers to contact legislators immediately to encourage them to support the bottle bill. Litter is such a problem on our neighborhood streets and highways and this bill will encourage people to return the beverage containers to a recycling center rather than to the side of the road. Furthermore, it will keep non-biodegradable trash out of the landfills. I pick up trash weekly in South Hills and approximately 50 percent of this trash is beverage containers. This state has been progressive with its legislation on minimum wage, health insurance, and drugs. Let’s join the other progressive states who have a bottle bill.

Bottle bill will reduce litter

Editor:

Have you picked up trash lately along West Virginia highways? I have been picking up trash in Summers County for at least 15 years.

Trash happens because persons do not want to be caught with open alcohol containers in their vehicles. It happens because once used, the container has no value and out it goes.

West Virginia relies on an army of 900 active volunteer organizations to help clean up highways.

We need a bottle bill to help retrain those who will litter and make them understand that containers have value.

We need a bottle bill so that we can recycle more plastic and glass. There is a business that will buy all used glass. Recycling is good for our lives and good for the earth. Cleaner air, cleaner water, cleaner land.

Who benefits from clean highways? Tourism, of course! Shops, hotels, restaurants, stores. Support a bottle bill and you support sustainable living, a cleaner environment and renewable resources.

We need new approaches and new methods of dealing with our waste stream. We volunteers are tired of hearing the same old story from those that don’t want to be troubled with a bottle bill but profit from their sale. They should be responsible for helping solve this significant eyesore!

Mark Blumenstein

To the editor:

The Herald-Mail published on December 22 a letter to the editor from Kathleen Linsenmeyer of Martinsburg, West Virginia in which she urged voters to express themselves against the Bottle Bill that the West Virginia legislature will be considering in the upcoming legislative session. In her letter, she made four points which I would like to comment on as follows:

1. “Deposit laws are really an elaborate mechanism to tax beverage purchases.”

Comment: Deposit laws are a mechanism to place an economic value on bottles and containers so that they will be recycled and not dumped on the highways or clog our landfills. Revenues derived from the deposits will be used for litter control and educational efforts. If each bottle carried a ten cent value, a lot more of these containers would be collected and taken to redemption centers and many fewer would be found along the highways.

2.“In states that have enacted force deposits, the price of beer and soft drinks have increased dramatically. Consumers near borders will cross state lines to avoid higher prices and deposits ….”

Comment: We need proof from Ms. Linsenmeyer that prices have increased in those eleven states with a bottle bill in force. My information is that after an initial downturn, sales resumed their normal levels. As to people crossing borders, consumers already pay a convenience tax in the form of higher prices to shop in convenience stores. Consumers are more likely to pay for the convenience of shopping nearby than they are to cross a border to save money on a six pack.

3. “Forcing consumers to return empty containers is inconvenient and costly for all. But it is particularly burdensome for the poor, elderly, handicapped and citizens who live in rural areas.”

Comment: How do these consumers obtain their food and beverages to begin with? They go to the store and buy them. Groceries are not delivered. Empty beverage containers can be taken to the redemption center during the course of normal shopping activities either by the consumer or someone helping the consumer with shopping. In addition, elderly and/or handicapped consumers could allow the helper to collect the deposit as a fee for helping the disabled consumer.

4. “There is a misunderstanding that a forced-deposit law would significantly reduce roadside litter. Litter surveys indicate that beer and soft drink containers comprise less than 6 percent of all roadside litter. Deposits would also have little impact on solid waste. Beverage containers are less than 5 percent of landfill solid waste.”

Comment:  As to roadside litter, I have been picking trash as part of the West Virginia Adopt-A-Highway program for ten years. Beer and soft drink containers comprise at least 40 to 60 percent of what we pick up. And glass containers are so heavy that they weigh the bags down and force us to use more bags to accommodate the weight of the containers. Ask anyone who has picked trash along the highways and they will tell you that Ms. Linsenmeyer’s 6 percent figure is inaccurate!

As to landfills, Ms. Linsenmeyer should acknowledge that even if beverage containers are less than 5 percent of landfill solid waste (very doubtful), they are, for the most part, not biodegradable and will remain in the landfill for decades where they absorb precious landfill space. Beverage containers, in addition to being non biodegradable, are bulky and resist being crushed down to manageable proportions in the landfill, again costing more landfill space. The solution to the landfill problem is to recycle as many items as we can with a healthy respect for the rights of consumers.

I am grateful to Ms. Linsenmeyer for contributing to the debate about the Bottle Bill and recycling, an issue that is becoming increasingly critical throughout the country. Keep in mind that none of the eleven states that have bottle bills in place has repealed that legislation, and some are considering expanding the number of products subject to deposits. And other states are considering enacting bottle bill legislation.

Ms. Linsenmeyer points out the need for education and personal responsibility. I agree completely. But we see from the conditions on our highways and in our landfills that education and personal responsibility need help from a Bottle Bill.  Please contact Governor Manchin and your state senators and delegates to support the Bottle Bill. The Jefferson County Commissioners have already expressed their support, as have most of our state delegates and senators and the Jefferson County and Berkeley County Solid Waste Authority boards of directors.

Carl Schultz
Keep Jefferson Beautiful, Inc.
304 728-8459  

If I buy a bottle of pop under the deposit law proposed, I will pay for the pop and pay a deposit on the bottle.

Deposits on bottles worked very well in the 60's in WV, and many of us that found ourselves short of change, went to the movies with collected/retrieved along the road pop and milk bottle refunds.

Paul E. Hamrick
Clarksburg, WV

I wish I could get all of the members of the Legislature in one room so that I could tell them of my experiences as a (what I call) Neighborhood Grassroots Activist for the elimination of litter! Litter is making our state hard to sell; all of the money we spend on business development and marketing is negated by the physical appearance of our highways and cities, which results in companies and industries passing us up. Would you want to locate in a state that doesn't have the political courage to correct this devastating pandemic! Litter shames us all; can't they see that?

Richard Cobb
Huntington, WV

I took a walk in our neighborhood during the recent balmy weather looking for signs of spring. The signs I saw were the same that were reported in the story in the Dominion Post recently about litter and road side junk ! I thought, « If I had a dime for every bottle and can thrown out along this street, I could take myself out for a nice meal ! » Many states have bottle bills and I would be able to get that return, but I would not find as many bottles on the roadside ! There is a new, improved Bottle Bill that the our state Judiciary Committee is reviewing, House Bill 2300. In this bill, retailers and bottlers are no longer required to take back the empty containers. Instead, redemption centers across the state would do so - this would create hundreds of jobs, reduce our litter, save taxpayers money on clean-ups, and save farmers money on damaged machinery and livestock caused by litter. It would help keep the 1 billion containers we use annually in this state off our highways and out of our landfills. What an impact this bill's passage would have ! Nancy Houston is one of the sponsors of the bill. Give her a call at 1-877-565-3447 to tell her of your support !

Cindy O'Brien
Morgantown, WV

I am writing to you for the first time because I feel that you and the other Congressmen and women of this State are not doing your jobs in protecting the interests of the people of West Virginia. Some special interest groups in this State have blinded you to your obligations to the people of your State.

The taxpayers (they elected you) have to pay more than $3 million every year to clean up the highways in our State. My group (Heizer / Manila Watershed Org., Inc.) and I have cleaned more than 4 million pounds of garbage and trash off our highways and lands in conjunction with Adopt-A-Highway and Make-It-Shine. Our group cleans 23 miles of highways and streams.

We have found there is one company that causes more litter (bottles, packaging and cans) than all other companies put together. The company (Budweiser) was called by me to ask if they would be amenable to help the Watershed on some level. The company ignored our requests. We were told the company feels the bottles and cans are not their problem.

In one “party place” in our DNR wildlife area, we found that we were not walking on the ground, but on bottles, in a shallow pond. We took out and filled one whole 15,000 pound roll-off with bottles.

We will still clean up the highways, but this should tell you something about the attitude of the companies that distribute these bottles and cans. The containers go on a one way trip to our highways, streams and lands.

I hope that you will put HB 2330 on your committee’s agenda and pass this improved version of the Bill and move it to a vote. We will be watching.

Robert C. Carter
Founder / Vice PresidentHeizer /Manila Watershed Org., Inc.

Poca, WV