Posted on: Monday, July 1, 2002
Bottle bill proclaimed as 'historic'
By Timothy Hurley
Advertiser Staff Writer
Recycling advocates nationwide cheered loudly last week when Gov. Ben Cayetano signed legislation establishing a 5-cent deposit for beverage containers starting in 2005 — the first bottle bill in 16 years.
"It's pretty historic, almost numbing," said Pat Franklin, executive director of the Arlington, Va.-based Container Recycling Institute. "It's pretty hard to believe."
Although bottle bills have been proposed in nearly every state, no new law had been enacted since 1986, when California became the 10th state requiring refundable deposits on beverage containers.
Franklin and other recycling advocates are hoping Hawai'i's action will breathe new life into a movement that has been smothered by well-financed lobbying from the beverage industry.
"It is truly landmark legislation that will change Hawai'i's landscape," said Jeff Mikulina, director of the Sierra Club Hawai'i Chapter.
The law is certainly no overnight success story. As in many other states, environmentalists here had been pushing for a bottle bill for years.
How did success finally come?
Supporters say a few compromises — including the removal of liquor containers and a handling fee reduction — plus full-court lobbying from groups such as the Sierra Club, were key. It also helped that all four of Hawai'i's mayors and key leaders in the state Department of Health gave their support.
Bottle bill supporters estimate that Coke, Pepsi, Anheuser-Busch and other corporations spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on full-page newspaper ads, radio and TV advertising and on an aggressive legislative lobbying effort to prevent passage of the bottle bill.
"The beverage industry boasts that they have killed off over 1,000 attempts in the past few decades," Mikulina said. "But in Hawai'i — even with their slick advertising campaign and after buying up all the local lobbyists — they lost."
The bill, introduced by state. Rep. Hermina Morita, D-12th (E. Maui, N. Kaua'i), combines elements of traditional bottle bills with features that aim to hold down recycling costs.
Like Maine's bottle bill, it places a refundable deposit on all beverage cans and bottles except milk. As with California's bill, beverage containers won't be sorted by brand, reducing labor costs.
In addition to the 5-cent deposit, the law phases in a handling charge of as much as 1.5 cents per container that the Health Department will use to support the program.
While state recycling officials are still trying to figure out exactly what the program will look like — public hearings must be held for administrative rules that have yet to be written — the law calls for a system of redemption centers where containers can be returned for refunds, with more centers in heavily populated areas than in rural ones. Grocery stores won't have to take the bottles and cans back as long as there is a certified redemption center within a mile away.
The counties will help set up the centers. Honolulu, for example, plans to expand its existing recycling centers at schools, giving people the option of donating refunds to the school.
Some stores will likely have reverse vending machines, where individuals can return cans and bottles and get a receipt that can be exchanged in the store for cash.
"We want to make sure it's convenient to recycle," said Gretchen Ammerman, state recycling coordinator.
Ammerman, who arrived here from California two years ago, said residents will be quite pleased by the effect the bottle bill has on Hawai'i's litter problem.
"It really does get containers off the street," she said.
But Ed Thompson, executive director of the Hawai'i Food Industry Association, said there's a downside. Grocery bills will be higher, as costs likely will be passed on to customers. The average cost per store is estimated at $100,000, he said, and the industry as a whole will take a $9 million hit.
"It's going to be a big burden," he said.
Thompson also said that while the law doesn't require every store to have a redemption center, customers will demand them, adding to the burden.
What's more, he said, some experts believe that the handling fee won't support the program, and that it won't be long before state officials will ask to at least double it.
But state officials maintain that the handling fee, additional financing from unredeemed deposits and the value of the recyclables should cover the cost of processing.
Ammerman said that on Jan. 1, 2005, Hawai'i residents can expect to see imprinted on cans and bottles something like "HIRV 5¢," for Hawai'i Redemption Value 5 cents.
But it won't help to start collecting containers now in hopes of eventually cashing in a deposit. Containers won't be worth anything unless "HIRV 5¢" is printed on them, Ammerman said.
