‘Bottle bill’ dies

‘Bottle bill’ dies

12 th time

By MICHAEL MARTZ

Arundel Newspapers Staff Writer

RICHMOND — The “bottle bill” died its yearly death Monday, when the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Conservation and Natural Resources killed the measure by a 9-6 vote.

It was the 12th time that Sen. Madison E» Marye (D-Montgomery) has watched his proposed legislation die. It has reached the Senate floor only once and was defeated there.

The bill would have required returnable, deposit cans and bottles for beer and soft drinks, although it would have made other containers — wine and liquor bottles, milk and juice cartoons — exempt from the deposit requirement.

Sen. Charles L. Waddell (D-Loudoun), who was on the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors when it passed a local bottle bill in the early 1970s (later overruled by the Virginia Supreme Court), voted for the measure, which he said “is probably the most significant bill to deal with roadside litter. ”

Senate Minority Leader William A. Truban (RFauquier/Clarke/Warren/Shenandoah) voted against it. He thinks better enforcement of existing litter laws and provision of more trash receptacles along roads would do more to solve the litter problem, without putting an unfair burden on the beverage industry.

This year, as always, the measure brought lobbyists swarming into Richmond. The supporters included the Garden Club of Virginia, the Sierra Club and a va. riety of environmentalists and preservationists who ■ _' want the measure passed to reduce litter throughout f the state. / ' Its opponents included all levels of the beverage industry — glass makers, bottlers, distributors and mergB$g&?*$|&SBts tt- who said the bill, unfairly discriminates ^ t against the beer and soft drink industries, even though ' tihear products account for sfrelatively small portion of, •! ‘Utter. ••-1-■ .- •- - - «•

They also said the bill would hurt their businesses badly, even force them out of business, by requiring large capital investments for equipment, storage space and people to handle the returnable bottles.

The bottle bill festivities began last Thursday, when three shopping carts filled with cans and bottles appeared at the Capitol.

The bottles and cans — 600 of them — represented the number of drink containers the average Virginian uses, and throws away, each year. y>

Sen. Marye and his supporters staged a press conference Thursday morning to launch their lobbying effort, which actually had begun the day before, when Sen. Marye challenged eight of his opponents on the committee to go to Boston on Saturday, at his expense, to see how the Massachusetts bottle bill has worked. . No one took his offer.

Sen. Marye also imported two New Englanders for his cause: Bob Meserve, who runs a family grocery store in Kennebunkport, Me., and Rose Salvatore, who runs Mass Redemptions Inc., a Massachusetts business that picks up, sorts and recyles returnable bottles for retail stores.

Mr. Meserve said the sorting of returned bottles and cans'doesn’t cause him problems or require extra staff. He likes the law primarily because it is good for the tourist industry, which is big in Maine.

“I eiyoy the benefits of local tourism,” Mr. Meserve said.

The debate intensified on Monday, when the committee held a two-hour public hearing that was dominated by sign-waving opponents of the bill, all of them representing some aspect of the beverage bottling and distributing industries.

“The group of people there this morning are among: the most powerful lobbyists who will ever descend on the Capitol,” Sen. Waddell said Monday.

By the time the committee reassembled for a vote, there was little doubt of the outcome. ‘The result is the same, 9-6, and we knew that weeks ago,” Sen. Waddell said.