|
Hawaii Bottle Bill Victory Breaks 16-Year Logjam
HONOLULU, HI -- On June 25, Hawaii Governor Benjamin J. Cayetano made history when he signed HB 1256 into law, making Hawaii the eleventh
U.S. state to adopt beverage container deposit legislation, and the first since 1986, when California's bottle bill was implemented. Beginning in 2005, the law will place a refundable nickel deposit on each of the estimated 800 million beverage containers (except milk) sold in Hawaii each year. Unlike most other deposit laws, the Hawaii law also phases in an additional non-refundable charge of up to one and a half cents per container for the state Health Department to use in supporting recycling.
The bottle bill debate was a contentious one, pitting all four of Hawaii's county mayors, the state Department of Health, the state Director of Environmental Quality, Honolulu's recycling coordinator, the Sierra Club, and numerous local environmentalists against "Hawaii Citizens for Comprehensive Recycling," a front group funded by the Washington, DC-based National Soft Drink Association. "There were no citizens in Hawai'i Citizens for Comprehensive Recycling," said Jeff Mikulina, Director of the Sierra Club, Hawai'i Chapter.
CRI and activists in Hawaii estimate that Coke, Pepsi, Anheuser-Busch and other corporations, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on full-page newspaper ads, radio and TV advertising, and (Continued on page 6)
|
|
