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My closing statement read: "There is only one real effective and incentive method to encourage environmentally sound collecting of beverage one-way containers and it is deposit in combination with High-Tech R&D resulted Reverse Vending Machines!

Pat Franklin: "WE NEED A NATIONAL BOTTLE BILL"

The beverage industry's latest campaign to prevent new and expanded bottle bills is called Recycle Together. The American Beverage Association and the Climate Change Group have teamed up to "increase recycling as a way to reduce climate change and protect the environment."

The Jan. 5, 2009, Waste & Recycling News editorial "Clean drink of water" noted rightly that "one measure of how serious manufacturers are about the project is whether they become more receptive to bottle bills and container deposits."

They might be serious about the project, but it's unlikely that Coke and Pepsi, who have fought bottle bills for decades, and their new ally, Nestle Waters, are ready to call a truce. A more likely scenario is that they'll use the Climate Group and the Model Cities program - PDF, 64, 043 kB, 2 p. - (State of Oregon - Department of Environmental Quality - DEQ) to block container deposit legislation.

Model Cities evolved out of the National Recycling Partnership (NRP), an alliance of beverage companies, grocery manufacturers, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the National Recycling Coalition formed after the 2006 NRC Congress and touted as a "historic partnership created to reinvigorate recycling in America." Months after its formation, the NRP chose Hartford, Conn., as its first Model City. It's no coincidence that expansion of the state's bottle bill was being vigorously debated in the state Capitol that year.

The NRC´s executive director (now the Climate Group's director of sustainable resources) traveled to Hartford in early 2007 to offer the city an  $187,000 Model Cities grant to bring curbside recycling to  a small segment of the population. While there, she teamed up with Coke, Pepsi and grocery lobbyists over at the state Capitol to convince lawmakers that curbside recycling is more effective than deposit laws. The Model Cities ploy, coupled with aggressive lobbying, succeeded in thwarting expansion of Connecticut's bottle bill that year.

The premise that increasing beverage container recycling can reduce climate change and protect the environment is right on. Beverage containers are one of the most energy intensive packages on the market, and for every bottle and can recycled in America, two are trashed. According to the Container Recycling Institute, in 2006 nearly 5 million tons of greenhouse gases were emitted in the process of replacing 141 billion beverage containers trashed with new ones - a quantity equivalent to the emissions generated by 3.3 million cars.

Rather than embrace a program with a proven record of success, the beverage producers are offering a public relations campaign with a catchy, feel-good title - Recycle Together. After five decades of failed programs aimed at reducing litter and increasing bottle and can recycling, the last thing we need is another PR campaign. We need a program that can reverse the profligate wasting of energy and resources resulting from making new containers from virgin materials, in a matter of months, not decades. We need a program with a track record. We need a national bottle bill.

Pat Franklin founded the Container Recycling Institute in 1991 and retired as its executive director in April 2007.