What does a Bottle Bill have to do with healthy rivers?

February 23, 2011 | National River Cleanup, Restoring Rivers

Sara Strassman
Director, River Restoration, Upper Midwest

Iowa’s legislature is proposing legislation to repeal Iowa’s bottle deposit law. Bottle bills are part of an overall litter reduction approach that acknowledges the life cycle of recyclable goods. When a bottle or can is assigned a deposit fee, citizens are encouraged to collect and return recyclable goods to stores and collection centers where they can be amassed for reuse. The system requires all of us to do our part in keeping our communities clean and reusing materials rather than sending them to our over burdened landfills.

Since 1991, the National River Cleanup™ program has removed more than 8.7 million pounds of litter from 162,000 miles of waterways. These efforts are critical to reducing water pollution, wildlife deaths and unsightly debris in America’s rivers. Pollution prevention and litter reduction measures are important to make sure that those rivers stay clean and healthy. Bottle bills are one way of ensuring that used containers are managed responsibly and that fewer of these items find their way into our rivers and streams. Iowa’s bottle bill has an 86% redemption rate, a collection rate that significantly reduces the number of bottles and cans lying around in gutters and on landscapes that can be carried into our waterways when it rains. Iowa legislators need to hear about the bottle bill's benefits to healthy rivers.

Many bottle bills were established when communities and states became frustrated with the significant amounts of litter and trash that were strewn along our roadways, neighborhoods and public places. While river cleanups have had significant benefits, there is still a lot of trash out there and we all know that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

In Iowa, that prevention costs 5-cents.

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