ICC Data and Bottle Bills

1
Potomac Watershed Trash Summit
Washington, DC March 16, 2006

Pat Franklin Executive Director Container
Recycling Institute
Theres Treasure in the Trash
2
Rock Creek, Montgomery County
3
(No Transcript)
4
Plastic Beverage Bottles as a Percent of Total
Debris Potomac Watershed Cleanup
The 108,575 recyclable plastic bottles (10,000
pounds) collected during the 2004 spring cleanup
accounted for 30 of all bagged trash collected.
Source Alice Ferguson Foundation, 2005
5
Beverage Containers 28 of Marine Debris in
U.S. 2004 International Coastal Cleanup
United States
28
72
Source 2004 International Coastal Cleanup, The
Ocean Conservancy
6
All Beverage Containers as a Percent of Waterway
Debris in Kentucky 2000
Beverage containers, carriers, tops and pull tabs
represented 50 of total waterway debris in SWaCK
Study
44
Source Litter in Kentucky, A View from the
Field, Solid Waste Coordinators of Kentucky
(SWaCK) 2000.
7
What are our options for reducing litter?

• Litter taxes

• Recycling programs

• Container deposit laws

8
Litter Taxes
Litter taxes fund litter pickups and public
relations campaigns an approach thats like
mopping up the floor while the sink is
overflowing, instead of turning the spigot off.
9
After 35 years and millions of dollars in public
relations campaign expenses Iron Eyes Cody is
still crying!
10
Recycling Programs
Despite tremendous growth in curbside recycling
in the 1990s beverage container litter and
debris has actually increased.
11
Curbside Recycling has not Curbed Beverage
Container Coastal Debris
Estimate
Sources Ocean Conservancy, U.S. Bureau of the
Census, BioCycle. Note 2000 curbside access
rate is an estimate based on prior year.
12
Container Deposit Law States
Oregon Vermont Michigan Maine Iowa Connecticut Mas
sachusetts Delaware New York California Hawaii
13
Beverage Containers Recycled Per Capita in the
United States
191 per capita
490 per capita
Units
Source Table ES-1, Understanding Beverage
Container Recycling A Value Chain Assessment
Prepared for the Multi-Stakeholder Recovery
Project , Businesses and Environmentalists
Allied for Recycling (BEAR), 2002.
14
Container Recycling Scorecard
15
Litter Reduction After Passage of Container
Deposit Legislation
16

Beverage Containers as a Percent of Coastal
Debris in States with CDL

• Michigan, with a 10-cent deposit, has the lowest
  percentage of beverage container litter of all
  eleven CDL states
• With the exception of New York, all 7 CDL
  states were well below the national average of 18

Source CRI calculations based on 2004
International Coastal Cleanup data
17
Refundable Deposits Work

• They provide a disincentive to litter.
• They provide an incentive to recycle and to pick
  up bottles and cans that are littered.
• They stop litter at the source.

18
We can do something about beverage container
litter today!
19
They will thank us tomorrow!
20
Visit us on the web at www.container-recycling.o
rg and www.bottlebill.org
Container Recycling Institute 1776
Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Suite 800 Washington,
DC 20036 TEL [phone] FAX
202.263.0999
Email CRI_at_container-recycling.org
CRI is a nonprofit research and public education
organization that studies and promotes
alternatives for reducing container and
packaging waste.