Depositions On Deposits Return To Legislative Halls

In 1978, when the legislature was considering creating a bottle deposit program, a group of Teamsters drove beer trucks around the State Capitol in circles. The idea was to convince legislators not to create a bottle and can deposit program, an idea the Teamsters viewed a serious threat to business.

Among those trucking around was John Hollis, a driver for Hartford Distributors (an Anheuser-Busch affiliate) who doesn’t generally consider himself an environmentalist.

“I eat cooked owl for lunch,” he jokes.

This time around though, as the environment committee mulls an expansion of the deposit program, Hollis has joined the tree huggers. He said that in the 20-plus years since the law passed, more than 300 jobs have been created for warehouse workers, drivers and other positions involved in trucking and processing containers for deposit. Some drivers earn an extra $100 per week picking up the empties.

“Throughout the years, it’s worked. I was wrong,” he said.

Hollis is about the only one who has flipped sides in the battle over whether deposits should be required for containers of water and all other non-carbonated drinks, and whether the deposit should be raised to 10 cents, compared to the 5 cents currently offered for beer and soda containers.

Lined up on one side are some of the state’s biggest buyers of lobbying services, including Pepsi, Coke, Greenwich-based Nestlé Waters North America (owner of Poland Springs) and the Conn. Beer Wholesalers Assoc. Collectively, those companies employ the state’s biggest lobbying teams – Gaffney, Bennett & Associates, Robinson & Cole and Sullivan & LeShane — and none of them wants to see an extra 5 or 10 cents added to their products in Connecticut. They warn that the handling costs of the empties – which the Teamsters welcome - could add to the price of a bottle of water or juice.

Equally concerned are grocery sellers, who aren’t interested in having to store and handle thousands more bottles, as grocers from West Hartford, Manchester and Simsbury showed up to say.

Kids At Play

“None of the members in the association want to be in the garbage business,” said Carrie Rand-Anastasiades, contract lobbyist for the Connecticut Food Association.

On the other side are greenies like the local Sierra Club and the Audubon Society, which trotted in 20 enthusiastic middle- and high-school students from Farmington in green and white t-shirts. The environmentalists believe that recycling rates would be dramatically improved by offering a larger and expanded deposit.

“There’s no question that it’s an incentive for them to be picked up,” said Jessie Stratton for the Sierra Club.

Considering the bill is likely to pass the committee, as it did in 2005, the challenge for the big-money lobbyists, according to Gaffney Bennett’s Lisa Fecke, is to convince members of the House that there are too many other important items on the agenda.

The environmentalists, meanwhile, say they have a commitment from House Speaker James A. Amann (D-Milford) to bring the bill to a vote, and believe rank-and-file House members are coming around to the idea.

“The tide has turned…The people who weren’t with us are beginning to tell us they’re with us,” said Betty McLaughlin for the Audubon Society.

Muddied Waters

But as in most debates at the Capitol, the two sides aren’t as clear cut as one might think.

Even environmentally minded people wonder if the deposit system is really a good way of reducing litter. Most people find it inconvenient to drive trash bags of leaking bottles around to be returned, particularly if they have to cart them home from work first.

Business is not neatly aligned against the idea because of middlemen like the Teamsters and the state’s redemption centers, which collect the containers and sell the material. And considering the current fawning over “green” business, it’s not a great time to be seen as anything less than an energy-saving, fair trade-loving recycler.

Therein may lay a tiny opportunity for compromise. Brian Flaherty, a former state representative now a lobbyist for Nestlé, believes there are better ways to boost recycling (like an expansion of the curbside bin program), but said he wanted to distinguish the company from Coke and Pepsi as open to the idea.

“They’re saying no-no-no. We’re saying if you do it, realize what you’re doing to us. And take a look at what Connecticut’s recycling program really needs,” Flaherty said.

Jonathan O’Connell is a Hartford Business Journal Staff Writer.