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Page 4 · column 3 of 7 · from the scan, no model involved
To the editor:
Your editorial in last week’s Rappahannock News on the recently rejected bottle bill is the focus of my attention here.
Granted, that there are pros and cons on this issue. In my view, unlike the one you expressed, the pros have a decided advantage.
I’ve lived in a state with a bottle law. I’ve seen it work. Before its enactment, I used to jog, and to occupy my mind as I sped (a euphemism!) along, I would count the number of Bud, Schlitz, Narragansett, Coke, Sprite, 7-Up, and other bottles and cans to determine which in each category was the most popular. They were all there.
Then, the bottle law was enacted. The next summer, there were no more cans and bottles on the roadside. None! Compare our Rappahannock roadsides.
But you concede that a deposit is good for our roadsides and landfills. You cite “higher consumer costs and manufacturer inconvenience” as disadvantages.
The higher consumer costs are of course reclaimable at the place of sale, with only slight inconvenience to the consumer. The grocery stores, as sellers, complained bitterly at first, mostly because they had to adopt new procedures for handling the returnables.
By the second summer, when I returned to this bottle-and-can-free paradise, their procedures were in place, the returnables and refunds were handled with an absolute mini
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