Bottle bill brouhaha

| Monday, January 10, 2005

Charlotte Eby

DES MOINES — Iowa's so-called "bottle bill," which has allowed consumers to redeem empty beverage cans and bottles at their nearby grocery stores for a quarter-century, could be at a crossroads.


Two of the state's prominent grocers, Hy-Vee and Fareway, have taken steps to move can redemption out of some of their stores and direct customers to local redemption centers to get back their 5-cent deposits.


Last week, Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller threatened legal action against Fareway, claiming that some of the company's stores have refused to take back cans before receiving state approval to do so. The dispute has intensified as Iowa lawmakers prepare to return to the state Capitol for the 2005 legislative session that begins today, but it is unclear what action, if any, lawmakers might take.


Grocers complain that dirty or insect-infested bottles and cans come back to their store and create a health hazard. They say lawmakers have ignored pleas to let them out of the can-redemption business.


"We have found needles, syringes, rodents, all sorts of things in containers that have come back, and despite the law that they be rinsed out and clean, consumers still continue to bring them back in that condition," Jerry Fleagle of the Iowa Grocery Industry Association said.


The existing law allows


grocers to opt out of can and bottle redemption if they can send customers to a redemption center nearby. That alternative site must be approved by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, or DNR, which has been inundated with requests from grocers to do so in the past two months.


On the other side of the debate is Dewayne Johnson, the executive director of the Iowa Recycling Association.


He wants lawmakers to require grocers to accept cans and bottles this year. He said the bottle bill is a partnership between the parties that make, sell and buy beverages.


"If any one of those partners shirks their responsibility, the whole thing falls apart," he said.


He contends that the convenience of being able to return cans and bottles to about 3,500 retail outlets across the state is what makes the program so successful.


States that do not require stores to take back cans have far fewer containers, between 50 percent and 60 percent, returned by consumers, he said.


In Iowa, a remarkable 92 percent of those containers are returned. But Johnson predicts that figure would drop if Iowans could no longer take their cans and bottles back to local stores.


"If it's too much of a burden, they'll throw them out the window, they'll throw them in the garbage can, they'll go to the landfill," he added.


Sen. Joe Seng, D-Davenport, is in favor of doubling the 1-cent handling fee grocers get for each bottle or can returned to their store. But he said the stores still should be required to take them and believes the public thinks so, too.


"I think the bottle bill will suffer if we take it out of the grocery stores," he said.


Seng said the extra money raised from a 2-cent handling fee could be used to build redemption areas outside the stores. That would ease grocers' concerns that returned drink containers create unsanitary conditions in their stores, he added.


But Rep. Willard Jenkins, R-Waterloo, who serves as chairman of the House Commerce Committee, is predicting that no new changes will be put in place.


Jenkins understands the concerns of grocers, but he does not think the state should jettison the law. He has received calls from his constituents asking lawmakers to force grocery stores to take back cans, but Jenkins sees the issue as one of consumer choice.


"That's as strong a force as you can get. If the grocery stores lose business because of their practice, that's what the competitive marketplace is all about," he added.


Since mid-November, 104 stores across the state sought to transfer their duty to redeem cans to a local redemption center, DNR officials say.


A total of 84 stores have received permission to do so, including close to 40 of the new applicants. The stores are required to continue taking back those cans until applications are approved.


The DNR has denied one request by a Des Moines Fareway store because the redemption center where customers would have been diverted was more than three miles away.


"What we look for is making sure that it's convenient for consumers, and so the distance was a concern," said Theresa Stiner, a DNR environmental specialist.


She said the agency has received a number of complaints about stores refusing to take back cans even when there is no redemption center nearby. 


Stiner said there should not be any confusion about which stores and redemption centers have been approved. Both the center and store are contacted by the DNR when state officials reach a decision.


Fleagle said it is unreasonable and arbitrary for DNR officials to require that a redemption center be located within a mile, as they are doing now.


"I question the legality of it, not to mention the practicality of it," he added.


House Speaker Christopher Rants, R-Sioux City, said he is sympathetic to grocers after working in a grocery store as a teenager. Rants expects bills will be filed this year to change the bottle bill, but he does not know exactly how the law might be transformed.


"We're going to have to work through that process. I don't know if there are going to be any changes, but there will be debate," he added.


Charlotte Eby can be contacted at (515) 243-0138 or chareby@aol.com.