[OKC] Money for trash and the perks aren't free

[Shauna Struby]

New blog post on Fresh Greens <http://freshgreens.typepad.com/>  by Tricia
Dameron details how much ODOT spends on litter cleanup each year in Oklahoma
-- $3.5 million - and how programs such as "pay-as-you-throw" incentivize
recycling and cleaning up by citizens. A snippet:

Recycling can also be incentivized by container deposit legislation (also
called a
<http://www.bottlebill.org/about/benefits/litter/7bbstates.htm#ftn8> "bottle
bill"), which requires a refundable deposit on beverage containers. Seven
states with bottle bills studied litter rates and found a substantial
reduction in beverage container litter. Oklahoma Department of
Transportation spends $3.5
<http://www.okladot.state.ok.us/beauty/litter/index.htm>  million/year
cleaning up litter along state highways. A 1998 litter survey
<http://www.kab.org/site/DocServer/Litter_Literature_Review.pdf?docID=481>
found beverage containers to be the fourth highest source of litter in
Oklahoma.

Iowa, with land area and population comparable to Oklahoma, enacted
<http://www.bottlebill.org/legislation/usa/iowa.htm>  a bottle bill in 1978.
If Iowa can do it, why can't Oklahoma? Several attempts to enact a bottle
bill have failed in the Oklahoma Legislature. In 2008 a measure creating a
task force <http://webserver1.lsb.state.ok.us/2007-08HB/HB2455_int.rtf>  to
simply study container deposit legislation didn't even get a committee
hearing. 

Spending taxes to pick up litter will never cure the problem. And burying
reusable materials - materials that save money, energy and natural resources
- comes straight from pages of "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or
Succeed
<http://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Societies-Choose-Fail-Succeed/dp/0670033375>
," by Jared Diamond. Both practices seem antithetical to the fiscally
conservative values of the political majority here in Oklahoma

Great food for thought! More here ::: http://bit.ly/wiDB7. 

 

Shauna, OKC

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