4 ms·

If one thinks about it, it's not especially surprising that the bottle bills are both uncommon and popular. In order to have a bottle bill, a state needs to ta

If one thinks about it, it's not especially surprising that the bottle bills are both uncommon and popular. In order to have a bottle bill, a state needs to tax every bottle, convince grocers to help collect bottles, and operate recycling processors. Thus, the state's population needs to be liberal/blue/neoliberal enough on tax policy, have a strong bread basket with lots of farmers, and care for the environment. Why do bottle bills tend to get high amounts of participation once enacted? Environmentalism is more popular than folks think. The bigger reason, though, might be that a culture of recycling has become popular. It can be easy to place a bottle into a container on the street, or for a restaurant to collect a bottle on behalf of its patrons, and those unredeemed bottles contribute to the redemption rate. If the deposit is large enough, then a market for scavenging bottles can form, incentivizing redemption at scale, but this is usually considered a bad thing.

vidarh 8y ago
They don't really need to convince grocers. The way it works in Norway is that there is an excise tax on bottles and other drink containers. Every recyclable container you recycle gives you a credit against the excise tax. There is a national return scheme that retailers can opt into to handle the recycling, but in theory they could operate their own. The return scheme in effect costs less than the excise tax. Shops can decide not to participate, but in that case they sell drinks at the same price as everyone else, but has higher costs per bottle sold. (EDIT: Shops could decide not to participate; apparently that's changed at some point in recent years; it's now compulsory) That was enough to convinces pretty much every corner store, gas station and supermarket in the country to redeem bottles. Especially because they can do so for store credit, and so it helps drive footfall of people who will tend to spend the money immediately. The hard sell is getting people to accept it as necessary to get the legal framework in place.
astura 8y ago
They don't really "convince" grocers to collect bottles any more than they "convince" them to collect and redeem sales tax. It's done by legislation. Some places (California?) grocers don't accept bottles for redemption, recycling centers do instead.
kodablah 8y ago
> Why do bottle bills tend to get high amounts of participation once enacted? Environmentalism is more popular than folks think. The bigger reason, though, might be that a culture of recycling has become popular. Another reason is that the tax punishes those that don't. One wonders what the redemption rate might be if it was 50 cents a bottle? Or if you fined those that don't recycle them?
kingbirdy 8y ago
> Thus, the state's population needs to be liberal/blue/neoliberal enough on tax policy, have a strong bread basket with lots of farmers, and care for the environment. How are farmers relevant to whether or not a bottle bill is enacted?

vidarh 8y ago

They don't really need to convince grocers. The way it works in Norway is that there is an excise tax on bottles and other drink containers. Every recyclable container you recycle gives you a credit against the excise tax. There is a national return scheme that retailers can opt into to handle the recycling, but in theory they could operate their own. The return scheme in effect costs less than the excise tax. Shops can decide not to participate, but in that case they sell drinks at the same price as everyone else, but has higher costs per bottle sold. (EDIT: Shops could decide not to participate; apparently that's changed at some point in recent years; it's now compulsory) That was enough to convinces pretty much every corner store, gas station and supermarket in the country to redeem bottles. Especially because they can do so for store credit, and so it helps drive footfall of people who will tend to spend the money immediately. The hard sell is getting people to accept it as necessary to get the legal framework in place.

astura 8y ago

They don't really "convince" grocers to collect bottles any more than they "convince" them to collect and redeem sales tax. It's done by legislation. Some places (California?) grocers don't accept bottles for redemption, recycling centers do instead.

kodablah 8y ago

> Why do bottle bills tend to get high amounts of participation once enacted? Environmentalism is more popular than folks think. The bigger reason, though, might be that a culture of recycling has become popular. Another reason is that the tax punishes those that don't. One wonders what the redemption rate might be if it was 50 cents a bottle? Or if you fined those that don't recycle them?

kingbirdy 8y ago

> Thus, the state's population needs to be liberal/blue/neoliberal enough on tax policy, have a strong bread basket with lots of farmers, and care for the environment. How are farmers relevant to whether or not a bottle bill is enacted?