Skip to main content
Sister Publication Links
  • Sustainable Plastics
  • Plastics News China
  • Rubber & Plastics News
logo-pn-color
Subscribe
  • Login
  • Register
  • Subscribe
  • News
    • Processor News
    • Suppliers
    • More News
    • End Markets
    • FYI Charts
    • LSR World
    • Multimedia
    • NPE2021
    • K Show
    • Special Reports
    • Top materials of injection molders
      Recycled PET use by product category
      US PET, flexible packaging desintations
      Global fluropolymers additives market: CAGR
    • NPE exhibitors question handling of deposits for canceled trade show
      Exhibitors back NPE cancellation: ‘We couldn't take that risk'
      NPE2021 canceled as in-person event
      NPE reviews its options as pandemic prompts exhibitor to exit
    • Injection Molding
    • Blow Molding
    • Film & Sheet
    • Pipe/Profile/Tubing
    • Rotomolding
    • Thermoforming
    • Recycling
    • Machinery
    • Materials
    • Molds/Tooling
    • Product news
    • Design
    • What Keeps You Up At Night
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Sustainability
    • Public Policy
    • Material Insights Videos
    • Numbers that Matter
    • Polymer Points Live
    • Automotive
    • Packaging
    • Medical
    • Consumer Products
    • Construction
    • Videos
    • Galleries
    • Podcasts
    • CEO Issue
    • Best Places to Work
    • Processor of the Year
    • Rising Stars
    • Women Breaking the Mold
  • Opinion
    • The Plastics Blog
    • Kickstart
    • Heavy Metal
    • One Good Resin
    • BRICS and Plastics
    • All Things Data
    • Viewpoint
    • Perspective
    • Mailbag
    • Getting back on the road
      How long will it take for EVs to replace internal combustion engines?
      Watching, and hoping, for progress in 2021
      COVID-19 stories dominate 2020 headlines
    • Kickstart: Best foot forward
      Kickstart: Heading back to the office ... sometime
      Kickstart: 'Have an adventure in life'
      Kickstart: More toys for your collection
    • Heavy Metal: Coronavirus edition, plus the work of working from home
      Don't put off succession planning
      What's a good gift for your cobot? Batteries?
      Here's some big ideas to mull over the holidays
    • Plaskolite wins 3M supplier award
      Green feet: Braskem partners with Dansko on bio-based clogs
      Curbell donates plastic sheet for prosthetics project in Ecuador
      Covestro volunteers build ramp for Ohio veteran
    • There was no choice but canceling NPE still a big deal
      The business case for producer responsibility
      Think divided government stalls plastics legislation? Think again
      ACC, NAM eye economic priorities in Biden presidency
    • Thermoformers: Would you believe a 12 percent gain?
      Just how big is thermoforming in North America?
      Changing names for compounders embracing corporate branding
      Diversity the key to outperforming the market
    • Thermoformers: Would you believe a 12 percent gain?
      The benefits of getting social
      Rising Stars shine bright future on industry
      Getting back on the road
    • Perspective: Plastics manufacturers — a surprising contribution to sustainability
      Plastics industry business owners: Listen to your future workforce
      Perspective: ‘Fake news' of a different sort?
      Perspective: Making products in the USA is good for the planet
    • Mailbag: Additional fees for electric vehicles ‘unfortunate'
      Mailbag: Where's the plastics industry's response to critics?
      Mailbag: Manufacturers struggling to follow COVID-19 safety rules
      Modernizing recycling infrastructure will benefit businesses as well as the environment
  • Shop Floor
    • Blending
    • Compounding
    • Drying
    • Injection Molding
    • Purging
    • Robotics
    • Size Reduction
    • Structural Foam
    • Tooling
    • Training
    • Maintenance can ensure efficient blender operation
      Dosing: Perfect for adding color
      Blending vs dosing: What you need to know
      Going low or high: Comparing volume
    • Colors and custom compounds
      In the laboratory: Compounding solutions
      Recycling content: Resins going ‘green’
      Compounding: Glass and other fillers
    • Dryer maintenance: Don’t err with air
      Dryers: Options for a shop’s process
      Dryer installation: Going central?
      Resins: Hygroscopic or non-hygroscopic
    • Electric injection molding presses: Efficiency is key
      Hydraulic injection molding machines
      Proper maintenance can prevent downtime
      Hybrid injection molding machines
    • Purging Hot runners: Open or closed methods
      Purging extrusion machinery
      Purging extrusion blow molding machines
      Purging: Chemical, abrasive and non-abrasive
    • Controls, special applications boost production, profitability
      Robot maintenance key for smooth operation
      High-speed robots: A rapid way to increase efficiency
      Robots: Every shape and size
    • Maintenance: Key for efficiency
      Shredders: Plastic in pieces
      Safety first for size reduction
      Granulators: The right fit
    • Structural foam molding: Flexibility for processors
      Video: Structural foam molding
    • Mold inventory: How many molds does a shop have?
      Molds: Innovation
      Mold changeover: Saving time and money
      How molds work
    • Labor: Apprenticeships may provide answer
      Internships: Solving the skills gap in-house
      College training, programs
      Lean Six Sigma: Transforming business operation
  • Events
    • Plastics News Events
    • Industry Events
    • Livestreams/Webinars
    • Ask the Expert
    • Polymer Points Live
    • Reifenhäuser Technologies Livestreams
    • 2020 Caps & Closures Library
    • Plastics in Healthcare Library
    • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum Library
    • Polymer Points Live - February 2021
      Polymer Points Live - January 2021
      Polymer Points Live - December 2020
      Polymer Points Live - October 2020
    • Plastics in Healthcare 2020
    • Plastics News Executive Forum
    • Plastics in Automotive
    • Plastics News Caps & Closures
    • Plastics in Healthcare
    • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum
  • Resin Prices
    • All Resins
    • Commodity TPs
    • High Temp TPs
    • ETPs
    • Thermosets
    • Recycled Plastics
    • Historic Commodity Thermoplastics
    • Historic High Temp Thermoplastics
    • Historic Engineering Thermoplastics
    • Historic Thermosets
    • Historic Recycled Plastics
  • Rankings
    • Injection Molders
    • Blow Molders
    • Film Sheet
    • Thermoformers
    • Pipe Profile Tubing
    • Rotomolders
    • Mold/Toolmakers
    • LSR Processors
    • Recyclers
    • Compounders - List
    • Association - List
    • Plastic Lumber - List
    • All
  • Data Store
  • Directory
  • More+
    • Classifieds
    • Digital Edition
    • Newsletters
    • Sponsored Content
    • KraussMaffei Sponsored Content
    • ENGEL Sponsored Content
    • White Papers
    • Processor of the Year submissions
    • Sponsored By Ensign Equipment
      Filling Systems Customized for Any Process or Budget Need
      KraussMaffei
      Sponsored By KraussMaffei
      KraussMaffei Retools in US with investment from Parent Ownership
      Sponsored By Mitsubishi
      Innovative new technology from Mitsubishi Engineering-Plastics Corporation helps reduce emission footprints
      Canon Virginia, Inc.
      Sponsored Content By Canon Virginia, Inc.
      Canon Virginia Inc. brings collaboration to the table
    • KraussMaffei
      Sponsored By KraussMaffei
      KraussMaffei Retools in US with investment from Parent Ownership
    • Sponsored By ENGEL Machinery
      Tailored maintenance for injection molding machines and robots
      Sponsored By ENGEL Machinery
      Improve maintenance efficiency with e-connect.monitor
      Sponsored By ENGEL Machinery
      Maximum precision for lowest shot weights
      Sponsored By ENGEL Machinery
      Even more cost effectiveness for small precision parts
    • Shell
      Sponsored By Shell
      Food and Beverage Trends Impacting the Polymer Industry
      Sponsored By Conexiom
      Use Sales Order Automation to free up time for CSRs to focus on customers, not manual entry
    • Place an Ad
    • Sign up for Early Classified
MENU
Breadcrumb
  1. Home
  2. News
May 01, 2000 02:00 AM

Industry sinks bottle bill

Steve Toloken
  • Tweet
  • Share
  • Share
  • Email
  • More
    Print

    Kentucky's bottle-bill debate began two years ago with a story line seemingly lifted out of a Frank Capra movie — a high school class project on cleaning up litter gets championed by one of the state's most powerful political figures, House Majority Leader Greg Stumbo. It developed into one of the most heated and heavily lobbied political battles involving plastics recycling in recent years. But the effort failed this spring, after a blizzard of television advertising from the American Plastics Council, the National Association for PET Container Resources and other opponents succeeded in branding deposits as a tax.

    Both sides debate the impact of the money poured into the fight, but one thing is clear: Industry had a lot more to spend.

    Plastics News examined the spending on both sides of the fight, and found that deposit opponents dramatically outspent environmentalists.

    On the costly advertising campaign, the margin was conservatively 10-to-1.

    The industry coalition did not disclose spending on the ads, but by several accounts spent much more than the $6,600 that environmentalists reported spending on their small campaign of newspaper and radio ads.

    For example, Washington-based APC said it spent $20,000 for its share of the ads, and other groups like retailers and soft drink companies probably spent more, said Roger Bernstein, APC's vice president of state government affairs. Charlotte, N.C.-based NAPCOR said it spent less, but would not say how much.

    Kentucky's grocers alone spent more than $20,000 for their share of the ads, said Patrick Hicks, president of the Kentucky Grocers Association and Kentucky Association of Convenience Stores, both in Frankfort, Ky.

    One estimate of advertising spending prepared by Kentucky media consultants sympathetic to environmentalists estimated the industry spent $77,000 in the first 10 days of the campaign. The effort continued for several weeks.

    Industry officials said they may have had more money, but they needed the ad campaign because the state's two big newspapers were running editorials against them. They said they needed to present factual information to legislators and the public, and once they did, the bill ran into problems.

    "I don't know that cash made a difference," said Ray Gillespie, a soft drink industry lobbyist in Kentucky. "I'd like to think the decisions were made by legislators who saw the facts and made up their minds."

    APC's Bernstein said the TV message helped: "The advertising, which defined the issue as one of onerous taxation and a program with a high cost, was effective in getting our message out at a time when the local media seemed to be only championing the proponents."

    Industry argued that Kentucky shoppers would drive elsewhere to avoid the deposits because about 60 percent of the state lives on its border, said John Hinkle, president of the Kentucky Retail Federation. And studies in Massachusetts found it cost 3.25 cents to 6.8 cents per container to operate the collection system, but Kentucky collection centers would get only 2 cents, he said.

    "Primarily, our message was to try to get our local members back home aware of it and call their legislators," Hinkle said. "That was effective. The [ads] probably helped give cover for the legislators who had a tough vote."

    The industries' TV ad featured two women unloading groceries in a kitchen and talking about how the bottle bill amounts to a tax on beverage containers, and would hurt the elderly, in particular.

    Deposit opponents said framing the issue as a tax worked, even if both sides sharply debated whether it's fair to call a bottle bill a tax.

    "The tax campaign was less than responsible," said Tom Fitzgerald, executive director of the Kentucky Resources Council. "Not only was it misinformation about the bottle bill, it had the effect of poisoning the air regarding all the tax issues in the budget."

    Environmentalists and supporters in the Legislature said deposits are not a tax because the nickel and dime deposits on containers are refundable. But others call it a tax because many of the deposits do not get claimed, and governments depend on those unclaimed deposits to fund programs — sometimes programs unrelated to solid waste.

    "People say, `I think it's great if we clean up Kentucky,'|" Hicks said. "If you say, `It'll cost a nickel a container,' they say no."

    Deposit opponents argue that bottle bills are relics of a time before most people had curbside recycling, and they complain that the programs raise costs for companies and consumers. Environmentalists, however, say bottle-bill states recycle two or three times more plastic than other states and are the only effective solution to falling plastic recycling rates.

    The bill included an advanced disposal fee, which both sides agreed is a tax on containers.

    On spending for more traditional lobbying, Kentucky campaign finance documents also show that industry had an advantage — albeit smaller.

    The industry coalition spent $64,000 in January and $58,000 in February. The environmental groups, by contrast, spent $33,000 in January and $44,000 in February.

    The coalition included APC, Coca-Cola Co. and a local bottler, local and national soft drink associations, brewers and liquor trade groups. Environmental lobbying figures include about $20,000 each month from farmers' organizations.

    That is not all spending on the bottle bill, but rather what the groups spent on total lobbying. But the bottle bill was a significant part of what many worked on, and the comparison provides a useful measure of relative lobbying resources.

    Grocers and convenience stores, in particular, were able to use their strength in grass-roots lobbying, Hicks said. Grocers handed out leaflets, and convenience stores were successful in getting consumers to sign petitions opposed to the bill, he said. They said they found widespread opposition — the petitioners collected 154,000 signatures.

    In at least one incident, though, aggressive grocers' tactics seemed to have backfired.

    State Rep. Fred Nesler told a legislative staffer that he was furious that a local grocer in Mayfield, in his rural district, was handing out leaflets to customers specifically blaming Nesler for hurting business if the container-deposit proposal passed. Nesler was getting phone calls every few minutes from people opposed to bill.

    To show his anger, Nesler told Stumbo aide Barbara Rhoads that he would make the motion to move the bill out of committee on a crucial upcoming vote. The bill passed out of the Appropriations and Revenue Committee by a 15-14 vote in February.

    Nesler did not return phone calls to Plastics News, but Rhoads said Nesler was "furious" and told her that "I don't want Ray Gillespie or John Hinkle to ever ask me for anything while I am on this committee."

    Hicks said telling customers to call Nesler went beyond the bounds of fair play in Kentucky, and he called it an "unfortunate situation."

    "We made every effort to get that stopped," said Hicks, who grew up in Mayfield. "[Nesler] knows that's not the way I play ball. ... When you do grass roots, you ask people to communicate with their elected officials. Sometimes they get kind of emotional, and you can't control them."

    The environmentalists were not as organized, and even in the last days of the legislative fight did not have a phone tree to start to make calls, for example, said Dick Shore, a lobbyist for the Kentucky Conservation Committee, which gets funding from a local Sierra Club chapter and the League of Women Voters.

    Some of the environmental groups also operated on a shoestring. The Kentucky Resources Council did not have money in January and February to pay the salary of its executive director, and the nearly $7,000 it listed in lobbying expenses is what it owes him when it brings in more money, the group said.

    Perhaps the strongest card environmentalists had was Stumbo, the majority leader in the Kentucky House and sponsor of the bill, who pursued it very aggressively.

    Kentucky's governor also endorsed the bill, in concept.

    After the bill died on the House floor, Stumbo resurrected it as a constitutional amendment referendum and almost succeeded in getting it on the ballot.

    "You have to recognize that Mr. Stumbo is possibly the most powerful person in the Legislature," said Hicks. The bottle bill, he said, was also "an organized effort to present Mr. Stumbo in a positive way and position him to run for higher office."

    Rhoads, Stumbo's aide, said she thinks the industry's legislative push was more important than the advertising campaign in stopping the bill. But members of the industry coalition said Stumbo also engaged in a lot of old-fashioned political arm-twisting on legislators in the middle.

    Denny Harris, immediate past president of the Solid Waste Coordinators of Kentucky, said the raw politics frustrated him.

    He believes the industry coalition's money and lobbying campaign stopped legislation that would have helped the state.

    For example, a survey from the solid waste coordinators found that 52 percent of the litter on highways and in rivers would be covered by the bottle bill, said Harris, who is solid waste coordinator for rural Logan County along the Tennessee border.

    As another example, Harris said he and a work crew of jail inmates recently pulled five pickup-truck loads of garbage from a small lake in Logan County, and he estimated 70 percent of it was bottles and cans. A bottle bill would be the best way to reduce that, he said.

    "When you are out there facing the problem every day, and [the bottle bill] gets voted down, it's discouraging," Harris said. "The 70 percent of Kentuckians who want the bottle bill don't have the money the bottle industry does."

    Letter
    to the
    Editor

    Do you have an opinion about this story? Do you have some thoughts you'd like to share with our readers? Plastics News would love to hear from you. Email your letter to Editor at [email protected]

    Get our newsletters

    Staying current is easy with Plastics News delivered straight to your inbox, free of charge.

    Subscribe today

    Subscribe to Plastics News

    Subscribe now
    Connect with Us
    • LinkedIn
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Instagram

    Plastics News covers the business of the global plastics industry. We report news, gather data and deliver timely information that provides our readers with a competitive advantage.

    logo-pn-color
    Contact Us

    1155 Gratiot Avenue
    Detroit MI 48207-2997

    Customer Service:
    877-320-1723

    Resources
    • About
    • Staff
    • Editorial Calendar
    • Media Kit
    • Data Store
    • Digital Edition
    • Custom Content
    • People
    • Contact
    • Careers
    • Sitemap
    Related Crain Publications
    • Sustainable Plastics
    • Rubber & Plastics News
    • Urethanes Technology
    • Plastics News China
    • European Rubber Journal
    • Tire Business
    Legal
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    • Privacy Request
    Copyright © 1996-2021. Crain Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
    • News
      • Processor News
        • Injection Molding
        • Blow Molding
        • Film & Sheet
        • Pipe/Profile/Tubing
        • Rotomolding
        • Thermoforming
        • Recycling
      • Suppliers
        • Machinery
        • Materials
        • Molds/Tooling
        • Product news
        • Design
      • More News
        • What Keeps You Up At Night
        • Mergers & Acquisitions
        • Sustainability
        • Public Policy
        • Material Insights Videos
        • Numbers that Matter
        • Polymer Points Live
      • End Markets
        • Automotive
        • Packaging
        • Medical
        • Consumer Products
        • Construction
      • FYI Charts
        • Current FYI
      • LSR World
      • Multimedia
        • Videos
        • Galleries
        • Podcasts
      • NPE2021
      • K Show
      • Special Reports
        • CEO Issue
        • Best Places to Work
        • Processor of the Year
        • Rising Stars
        • Women Breaking the Mold
    • Opinion
      • The Plastics Blog
      • Kickstart
      • Heavy Metal
      • One Good Resin
      • BRICS and Plastics
      • All Things Data
      • Viewpoint
      • Perspective
      • Mailbag
    • Shop Floor
      • Blending
      • Compounding
      • Drying
      • Injection Molding
      • Purging
      • Robotics
      • Size Reduction
      • Structural Foam
      • Tooling
      • Training
    • Events
      • Plastics News Events
        • Plastics News Executive Forum
        • Plastics in Automotive
        • Plastics News Caps & Closures
        • Plastics in Healthcare
        • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum
      • Industry Events
      • Livestreams/Webinars
      • Ask the Expert
      • Polymer Points Live
      • Reifenhäuser Technologies Livestreams
      • 2020 Caps & Closures Library
      • Plastics in Healthcare Library
      • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum Library
    • Resin Prices
      • All Resins
      • Commodity TPs
        • Historic Commodity Thermoplastics
      • High Temp TPs
        • Historic High Temp Thermoplastics
      • ETPs
        • Historic Engineering Thermoplastics
      • Thermosets
        • Historic Thermosets
      • Recycled Plastics
        • Historic Recycled Plastics
    • Rankings
      • Injection Molders
      • Blow Molders
      • Film Sheet
      • Thermoformers
      • Pipe Profile Tubing
      • Rotomolders
      • Mold/Toolmakers
      • LSR Processors
      • Recyclers
      • Compounders - List
      • Association - List
      • Plastic Lumber - List
      • All
    • Data Store
    • Directory
    • More+
      • Classifieds
        • Place an Ad
        • Sign up for Early Classified
      • Digital Edition
      • Newsletters
      • Sponsored Content
      • KraussMaffei Sponsored Content
      • ENGEL Sponsored Content
      • White Papers
      • Processor of the Year submissions