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Container and Packaging
Recycling UPDATE
Summer/Fall 2001 Issue

DES MOINES - An epic battle over the future of the Iowa bottle bill is taking shape. At first glance it appears that broad agreement exists for expanding the 22-year deposit law to include non-carbonated beverages and increasing the handling fee.

In reality, one approach would cut the heart out of the recycling system by effectively eliminating grocery and convenience stores as redemption sites, reducing redemption locations for consumers from approximately 3,000 now to around 100, according to Iowa Recycling Association Executive Director Dewayne Johnson. Champions of the so-called 'repeal' approach are Senator Merlin Bartz (R), who introduced SF 194, and Representative Bob Brunkhorst (R), who introduced HSB 142.

The second approach also expands the deposit requirements to non-carbonated beverages and raises the handling fee from one cent to two cents. However, it maintains the current, widespread system of grocery and convenience store redemption sites. The second approach, SF 97, introduced by Representative

Nancy Boettger (R), never got a hearing, despite a broad base of support.

Supporters of SF 97 include Governor Tom Vilsack (D), and former Governors Terry Branstad (R) and Robert D. Ray (R), 21 business leaders and more than a dozen statewide organizations in the Beautiful Land Coalition. Members of the coalition include: Iowa State Association of Counties; Iowa League of Cities; Iowa Recycling Association; Iowa Association of County Conservation Boards; Iowa Conservation Education Council; Ecumenical Ministries of Iowa; Iowa United Methodist Church; and the Iowa Wildlife Federation.

The Bartz and Brunkhorst bills, disguised as expansion bills, really were repeal measures at heart. Both bills passed policy committees, but died in the Ways and Means Committees of each chamber.

A reliable source tells CRI that the Republican leadership in both the house and senate was committed to keeping the 'real expansion' bill, SF 97, bottled up. The battle is expected to resume in 2002.