The Times West Virginian

Opinion

March 1, 2009

Would ‘bottle bill’ discourage littering?

As a child in Oregon, a state where you have to pay a nickle extra if you want a pop, the Poe kids sure loved Saturday morning.

On Saturday, we headed out in the early morning with bags and hit the park near our house. We collected cans and bottles left over from “parties” the night before and headed toward the grocery store, picking up cans along the way. By the time we got to the grocery store, we had quite a bit of cans in our bags. In fact, we usually had enough to watch a matinee. I don’t remember any of the movies, but I sure do remember getting all of those cans. Being the youngest, I was sometimes designated to maneuver into tight places to grab a can, under a bush or some other place I’m sure my mother wouldn’t approve of.

The nickle deposits, still in effect today, were an effort to reduce litter and refuse and to promote recycling in a state that practically invented the Green Movement. But it didn’t matter much to those who partied on Friday nights and found the most convenient place to stash a can was the side of the road or under a picnic table. Oh well, their stash was our cash.

I’m not the only one who has memories like that.

And online poster to our community forum, known only as “cuzanbill,” remembers doing that same thing as a child here in Marion County.

“Before plastic became so popular, most beverages came in glass bottles — especially milk and pop had a deposit on them,” Bill writes. “You either carried back empties to the store or paid deposit on your new purchase. As a kid in the 1950s, I made my candy money collecting pop bottles from along the roadside where the deposit payers had tossed them.

“On a good day, I might make a couple of dollars at 3 cents a bottle. That was 3 cents a bottle when the pop was 5 to 10 cents a bottle,” he writes.

So now that legislators are considering a deposit on cans and bottles again — this time 10 cents — some people don’t think that a “bottle bill” will discourage littering and promote recycling.

“It didn’t back then!” Bill writes.

Another online fan, Fairmont native Mike Koval, who now lives in Ft. Meyers, Fla., doesn’t buy into the whole bottle bill either.

“I do not see the bottle/can deposit cutting down on litter,” Koval said in an e-mail to me sent last week. “Slovenly types will continue to toss the stuff out the window because ‘it is only one can, one bottle, or one piece of paper’ or ‘let someone else clean it up.’ Too lazy to put it in the garbage can when they arrive at their destination.

“ I see the deposit as another tax,” Mike says.

It was a pretty even split among our voters last week when we asked them on our online poll their thoughts about establishing a bottle bill here in West Virginia.

Some people don’t feel like the bill is necessary — they are already faithful recyclers. Coming in at 28.46 percent of the vote was, “I don’t need a dime to convince me to recycle. There’s a blue box on my curb every week.”

With a little bigger chunk of the vote were the ones who believe a bill like this will make a better world for future generations. With 31.71 percent of the vote was, “I support anything that will help me reduce my environmental footprint.” Hey, a can is a can — and it’s always a can unless it’s recycled.

With just a few more votes were the ones who think, like Bill and Mike, that the effort won’t be worth the effect. With a total of 39.84 percent of the vote was, “In the end, it will cost the state too much in administration costs for what it will bring in.”

Well, we have a bit more time to see whether 21st century kids will get a chance to see a matinee on someone else’s dime.

This week, let’s talk about the I-79 Gateway Connector. Now that there’s visible progress being made, what do you think the next development will be?

Log on. Vote. E-mail me.

Misty Poe

City Editor

mpoe@timeswv.com

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