Bottle deposit law should be strengthened

Once again, multiple bad bottle bills are being considered by the Legislature, threatening to undo decades of progress in helping to keep our landscape from becoming a trash dump.

The Iowa bottle-deposit law is a long-standing piece of extraordinarily successful and popular legislation that needs to be strengthened by:

Increasing the deposit to 10 cents.

Increasing the fee to redeemers to 2 cents.

Including items such as juice containers and water bottles that don’t currently require a deposit.

Maintaining convenience for consumers by not increasing the distance/time from store to redemption center.

Adding penalties for non-compliance.

Polls show its popularity, and its success can be gauged just by personal experience. As I hike or fish in our state, I often carry a trash bag to pick up litter, and the overwhelming majority of containers I find do not have the Iowa deposit stamp.

The success of this law rests on two legs, the incentive to return (the deposit) and the convenience to do so (after all — the deposit is quite small). Yet bills now in process, each in their own way, intend to weaken or eliminate this law to the advantage of a few wealthy corporations and the detriment of all Iowans.

Thomas Reardon

Council Bluffs