Sample Letter to Senators Regarding the Beverage Producer Responsibility Act

Your Name
Return Address
City and State
Printable Version (Word, 21 KB)

Date

The Hon. ___________
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator _________________:

I am writing to ask your support for Senator Jim Jeffords’ National Beverage Producer Responsibility Act. His bill would increase recycling of single-use, beverage cans and bottles by an estimated 90 billion containers each year.

Today, and tomorrow, and every day this year, more than 380 million beverage containers will be littered, landfilled or incinerated at an enormous expense to taxpayers. The ‘downstream’ costs to society and the environment are significant, but the ‘upstream’ costs of making new cans and bottles from virgin materials are even greater.

The Beverage Producer Responsibility Act sets an 80 percent national recycling goal for beverage containers, a goal that has been achieved in ten states with container deposit laws. The Act also requires a 10-cent, refundable deposit, as an incentive for consumers to recycle their used beverage containers. The refundable deposit system was invented by the beverage industry more than a century ago to retrieve their empty, refillable bottles. It is the only proven system for reaching recycling rates of 80 percent or higher.

In the ten states that require refundable deposits on beverage containers, more beverage bottles and cans are recycled than in the forty non-deposit states combined. Our own state of __________ has been recycling beverage containers through the bottle bill for ____ years, conserving energy and resources and virtually eliminating beverage container litter.

For over thirty years bottle bills have been extremely effective at achieving economic, social and environmental goals, but they have also been extremely unpopular with the regulated parties. The Producer Responsibility Act presents an opportunity to provide a new approach that addresses concerns of the industry stakeholders without compromising the public interest.

While local government and taxpayers are subsidizing the recycling, disposal and litter cleanup costs for used beverage containers, corporations are profiting from the sale of these single-use beverage containers. When beverage producers take responsibility for their beverage container waste, the external costs of litter cleanup, disposal and curbside recycling are shifted from government and taxpayers to producers and consumers of the products.

CC: Sen. Jim Jeffords

Sincerely,