Will this include Jack Daniels bottles? I hear there's a guy in the Nashville area has a lock on them. :-)

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."
Hunter S. Thompson

Why would we spend so much money to fight such a tiny fraction of the litter problem. Bottles and Cans make up a lowly 5-15% of all litter in Tennessee; Fast Food Waste/Wrappers make up at least 50% of all litter.

I'm all for spending State Dollars to fix the litter problem, but the Bottle Bill spends a Lot of money to tackle a relatively Small portion of Tennessee litter...

A comprehensive approach would be more cost-effective, and better able to address the Real litter problem.

"Why would we spend so much money to fight such a tiny fraction of the litter problem."

Because 50% to 75% by volume is not a tiny fraction
Because it works in other states
Because the roadways in rural Tennessee all look like they lead to the dump

Bottles and cans are only 5-15% of what is littered.

This comes from surveys that do not differentiate between litter on a downtown street and litter on a rural country road. Cedar Bluff may have more fast food wrappers, but the western section of Northshore has more beer bottles and soda cans.

The Mass and Weight of less commonly littered items (bottles and cans) are not very significant in terms of overall Blight, and neither are they comprehensively significant in terms of Littering Behavior.

That statement may apply to weight, but mass? Mass - amount of matter - is extremely significant in terms of overall blight.

I agree that changing littering habits is the key, but nothing tried so far in Tennessee has worked. It makes sense to me to put a monetary value on the items being thrown out of car windows. No one throws nickles and dimes out because they're too lazy to take them home.

Having lived in Michigan with its above average 10 cent deposit on bottles and cans, I can attest that it is very successful at discouraging them as litter. I suspect the law also has an impact on solid waste disposal needs where it's been adopted.

The only shortcoming I could see was that the law was not written broadly enough. One doesn't find a soda or beer container anywhere on the street. But other beverage containers (milk, anything that contained a hint of juice, etc.) continued to show up. Once the other container debris is out of the equation, these really stand out.

It was sometimes irritating when retailers would refuse to refund deposits on cans due to dents (crushed was out of the question*). But most were very reasonable.
~m.

*There's good reason. There's a burden on grocery stores and other retailers to maintain sanitation. And storing a few thousand crushed cans with small amounts of sugar and water trapped in them doesn't promote that. So there's a certain degree of discretion on the part of the seller/refunder as to what they'll accept.

A litter study that counts a straw wrapper and a beer bottle as statistical equivalents is designed to make cans and bottles seem insignificant, and is suspect unless the same trash is also counted by volume. How many bags of cans, bottles, other? I'm not aware of any studies that do that, I think most are done with an agenda behind them.
I base my comments on my experience. I spend over 100 hours a year picking up trash, and have done so most of my adult life. I consistently fill more trash bags with bottles and cans than other items; sometimes 2 to 1. I do this in order to recycle what I can, not in support of any legislation.
SB1408/HB1829 won't solve the problem of litter completely, but it's an excellent start. I come from a "bottle bill" state and I know it cuts down on litter and eventually changes the habits of litterers, and for that reason I support it.

http://masspirg.org/MA.asp?id2=3056&id3=MA&id4=MAFS&

Tennesee can improve upon the standard bottle recycling laws other states originally passed. Let's make it comprehensive here.

Thanks for visiting my blog: http://caroleborgespoet.blogspot.com/

I've lived in two states with good bottle bills (MA and WA) and once passed they were very popular. Some in industry fought them but the bills turned out to be good for all. None of the dire things warned about happened. :)

Kids loved the income from picking up bottles and cans as did enterprising adults. I remember one fellow in Boston who was making $60k per year collecting bottles and cans back in the late 70's and early 80's. And the streets were free of cans and bottles. As a kid I made a few dollars myself that way.