RE: [greenyes] "Should Congress pass a national deposit law?"

["Pat Franklin" <pfranklin@no.address>]

Is there something wrong with street people benefiting from a system that
rewards the redeemer of a deposit container.  If the value of deposits on
one-way containers had increased with inflation, as the refillable beer and
soda bottles did (they started at a penny and by the time refillable soda
bottles were taken off the market the deposit had increased to a dime)
consumers would be returning the cans and bottles themselves.  Legislators
have failed to amend the laws to increase the deposit value  so fewer and
fewer consumers are incentivized to take their containers back.  But the
beauty of the deposit system is that there will always be someone for whom a
nickel (or 4 cents in the case of CA) is enough of an incentive to pick the
container up and take it back for the redemption value.

Both systems have value and are not mutually exclusive.

  -----Original Message-----
  From: Kendall Christiansen [mailto:KChristiansen@no.address]
  Sent: Friday, March 04, 2005 2:06 PM
  To: Pat Franklin; RicAnthony@no.address
  Subject: RE: [greenyes] "Should Congress pass a national deposit law?"


  all of which means a cookie-cutter/one size fits all concept/system needs
local tailoring....conceptual dilemma is that curbside and redemption
programs/systems were layered on top of or parallel to each other, and not
effectively integrated/rationalized....so public messages get confused,
unintended consequences magnified (including it turning into an underground
jobs program for street-people), and systems aren't optimized....much of the
"rebuttal" arguments with respect to redemption vs. curbside are themselves
rebuttable opinions....one of these years maybe it'll be time for less
posturing and more constructive thinking...




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  From: Pat Franklin [mailto:pfranklin@no.address]
  Sent: Friday, March 04, 2005 1:59 PM
  To: RicAnthony@no.address; Green Yes
  Subject: RE: [greenyes] "Should Congress pass a national deposit law?"


  Capturing beverage cans and bottles through a curbside program is one
vehicle, but only if you have curbside.  About 40% of the US population does
NOT have access to curbside program.  I don't know what the estimate is for
the percent of folks who have access to curbside and take advantage of it,
but it's probably under 80% on average.  But even in cities, counties and
towns where the public does have access to curbside recycling, a large
percentage of beverage containers are being drained away from home, where
collection programs are few and far between.


    -----Original Message-----
    From: RicAnthony@no.address [mailto:RicAnthony@no.address]
    Sent: Friday, March 04, 2005 1:51 PM
    To: greenyes@no.address
    Subject: Re: [greenyes] "Should Congress pass a national deposit law?"


    In a message dated 3/4/2005 10:39:50 AM Pacific Standard Time,
cmccoy@no.address writes:Well, someone for example said they wanted to say
that curbside recycling programs are a better way to capture containers for
recycling.

    Probably true and in California the deposit on the containers make the
capturing of these containers at the curb profitable.  The deposit also
makes it more cost effective to collect containers away from home.

    The current salvage prices do not represent the actual cost  to recover,
although history, time and population growth seems to be changing that as
well.
    Ricanthony@no.address
    RichardAnthonyAssociates.com
    San Diego, California