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mum of inconvenience to anyone, and the complaints of the storekeepers had subsided. Furthermore, the roadsides were still pristine.
I never heard anything about manufactures’ inconvenience, and if I had I would reject their complaints, if any, out of hand. Why? Because they, like most industrial concerns in the U.S., have been permitted (unwisely) to externalize the costs of their pollution of the environment. That is, they do not include the cost of roadside pollution in their cost of doing business, but transfer such cost to the public at large. The deposit for returnable bottles and cans is merely the cost of removing the source of pollution created by the manufacturers in the first place.
Finally, you ask, “if the concept is so effective elsewhere, why have only 10 or 11 states adopted such programs?”
In the light of the discussion so far, the question answers itself. Bottle bills fail in the General Assembly because of the determined opposition of the bottling industry, which wants to continue to externalize the costs of dealing with the pollution it causes, and transfer them to the general public.
The states that have adopted bottle laws include the New England states, Oregon, and several Middle Atlantic states. In each case, tourism and the vacation business is considered to be of great importance. Greater, even, than the bottle business.
Tourism and vacationing are important in Virginia, too. They produce substantial revenue. I submit that the enactment of a bottle bill in Virginia would enhance overall revenue as well as environmental esthetics.
Incidentally, the landfill I patronize in Massachusetts, which is one of the bottle law states, maintains an aggressive recycling program. That program, coupled with the operation of the bottle law, has reduced the volume of waste at the landfill by more than 50 percent.
LEE BIRD
Washington
95.2%