Markey introduces national bottle recycling bill
Last week, Ed Markey (D-MA) introduced the Bottle Recycling Climate Protection Act (H.R. 4238), a bill that would mandate a 5 cent deposit on all beverage bottles and cans. Including water bottles. Markey:
Congress can send the nation a global warming message in a bottle ... Recycling is an everyday action that we can all take to cut global warming emissions and be good environmental stewards. Our national goal should be to one day recycle every single bottle we use, and this bill will get us closer to that goal and that day.
According to the press release, "58 billion cans are thrown away every year here in the United States, enough to fill the Empire State Building six times." Recycling all those cans would be equivalent to taking a million cars off the road. Here in Michigan, we have a 10 cent bottle deposit law, though it doesn't apply to water bottles (which is too bad). It really works. It forces you to recycle cans, and if you don't, someone else will. On U of M game days, there are guys wheeling around grocery carts full of beer cans and bottles.
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