We appreciate Mr. Jeffery's clarification of his initial commentary. His vision has merit, and the rest of the beverage industry would be wise to consider his advice.

Mr. Jeffery is effectively proposing to build on the flexible, market-based features of the California system, but without the same level of government involvement.

Under the California system, containers are collected thru the existing public and private collection infrastructure that includes buybacks, drop-offs, curbside and material recovery facilities. A consumer bounty (refund value) is provided to stimulate collection, but virtually all collection system costs are covered by unredeemed funds.

Even with the dreaded involvement of government, it’s worthwhile to note that this system has proven to be incredibly effective and efficient. In the last year, 80% of containers were recycled, and the net added cost to beverage consumers equals about two-tenths of a cent for glass and plastic beverage containers, and no added cost for aluminum cans. And in the last year, this system provided more than $170 million to support curbside collection of recyclables. Taxpayers pay nothing for beverage container recycling.

By comparison, Manitoba system is costing consumers 2 cents per container and is achieving a less than 35 percent recycling rate. Similarly, most Canadian Bottle Bill programs, which have been controlled by the beverage industry (rather than government) for years, cost consumers many-times more per container than the California system, while achieving no better recycling results. Bureaucratic incompetence and inefficiency would appear to have a stronger foothold in industry-run monopolies than in the largest of ‘government run’ recycling systems.

Regardless, Mr. Jeffery’s main-point is well taken. It’s time to re-think the traditional bottle deposit model. But an honest look at market-based efficiency and performance may lead to a surprising conclusion.

We welcome the continued dialogue.

I agree that recycling must go beyond collection to create closed-loop recovery systems to re-use the material at its most optimal use –environmentally and economically. The recycled content question in the beverage industry is a conundrum right now, but a solvable one. Recycled content is low across the industry and used mostly in niche brands, including our 100% rPET Montclair brand in Canada. The reason is that food grade recycled PET is more expensive today than virgin PET. In order to get rPET to be a viable business, there needs to be price parity with virgin PET.
We are planning to build an rPET plant in the northeast able to process 40 million pounds of material. We won’t be successful if we have to outbid China for PET already being recovered – the price differential between virgin and rPET is already too great to enable us to be price competitive. Driving PET recovery to 60% or more will increase supply and narrow the price gap, and allow us to greatly increase our recycled content. When our plant is completed, it will allow us to put 25% recycled content into two of our high-volume brands. I remain convinced that a good EPR system for packaging will allow for the collection of more of the much-needed feedstock PET material and keep more packaging waste out of landfills.
We appreciate the comments and look forward to working with all of you on advancing a better closed-loop system.
Kim Jeffery, Nestle Waters

Certainly there has been a substantial amount of conjecture on the "extended producer responsibility" debate. Some entities say specific extended producer responsibility bills don’t work because they are too specific and we need a bill that covers all waste. Other entities suggest that having such bills creates tiny bureaucracies.

Nevertheless, the solution is in the apparent solutions and the apparent problems. We are not just dealing with trash. We are dealing with societal attitudes, governmental issues and capitalism and democracy itself. Most of the commentators here have their tires spinning out of the start line. in order for the vehicle of extended producer responsibility to gain momentum, American society needs to be ready so that everything can move forward in concert. We are not ready yet. But, judging from all the spirited comments, it looks like the environmental community will be leading the way once they slow down to allow the system to actually move forward instead and just spinning their wheels in hopeless conjecture.

The issue of taxation itself is a big impediment that must be addressed before anything can move forward.

didn't mean to single out Nestle, by the way-- Coke and Pepsi and all the plastic bottle beverage companies could use a lot more recycled content ...

I agree with commenters that "bottle bills" are A Good Thing: they are unquestionably successful at boosting recycling rates, and they also promote behavioral changes in consumers. California's model is excellent-- with the lowest costs per unit of recycling and highly flexible return options (including curbside recycling)-- not to mention tremendous reliance on the private sector to collect and process the bottles, sustaining thousands of jobs. Consumers should pay for the cost of handling the waste we generate-- all waste, not just bottles-- and the way we should pay is by deposit.

But I must disagree with one point: recycling is NOT all about increasing collection. We already collect more recycled PET than we know what to do with! California ships 80% of its bottles to china. If we really want to improve our material use, we need to invest in DEMAND for secondary material. I would like to know: what's the recycled content of Nestle's bottles? (i.e. what portion of bottles are made from recycled material) I bet it's less than 5%, even after they finish their planned bottle-to-bottle plant. What good is recycling 60% of bottles if they don't get used? Increased demand for recycled plastic would increase the price, expanding the razor-thin margins of recyclers and reducing our reliance on oil and gas to make new plastic.

Recycling is a lot more than dropping waste in a bin-- it requires industry to change how they operate too, not just consumers.

I’ve been following the robust conversation that my op-ed on rethinking recycling has sparked, and want to do justice to many of the thoughtful responses by clearing up misimpressions my words may have left.

Nestlé Waters North America has supported—and still supports—bottle bills that reflect the principles in California’s law. California rethought the traditional 1970s era “beer and soda” bottle bill model in 1987, passing a law that provided flexible return options and supported that state’s robust recycling system. We may have arguments with how California has administered that law and how the legislature raided the recycling fund to plug its budget holes, but we support the underlying concept of modernizing traditional return-to-retail bottle bills to make them less costly, more flexible, and more convenient for consumers and retailers.

Bottle bills and extended producer responsibility (EPR) have very similar roots, and are based on similar principles. Traditional bottle bills certainly generate high recycling rates for covered beverages, but they’re incomplete because they are constrained by retail returns, and don’t help support other recycling systems.

So we urged Oregon legislators to modernize their bottle bill (SB 707) before they expanded it in 2007. While the state did not heed our suggestion, I must agree with the comment by Mr. Spendelow that the Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative, on which we sit, has made great strides to opening up the return options with its redemption centers. This Cooperative, indeed, is a form of EPR, but it is only limited to the beverages covered in Oregon’s bottle bill.

Our experience in Oregon led us to work with—and publicly support—former Connecticut Gov. Jodi Rell’s bill (SB 831) to rethink recycling by expanding the bottle bill and using unclaimed nickels to expand recycling options and provide a modest funding stream for municipal recycling.

Rethinking recycling, whether by modernizing existing bottle bills or supporting EPR, has everything to do with boosting recycling, which has everything to do with diverting as much waste as possible from landfills. And it also means a greater ability to capture the plastic bottles, from shampoo to ketchup and detergent, that aren't covered by the most perfect bottle bill one could design. This is the promise I see in EPR.

Nestlé Waters will soon be building a bottle-to-bottle recycling facility here in the U.S., and if we are going to be successful in making recycled “PET” plastic a viable business, we need to get back as much material as possible. Our “rPET” venture depends on better recycling rates. Not just for beverages, but across the board for all PET containers.

An EPR system creates a sustainable fund to cover the costs of getting packaging back to be used again, and spreads the costs across a wider set of materials than only beverage containers. I just returned from Toronto, which has a curbside program that began collecting six types of material. It now collects 27 types of packaging material and continues to expand. This is the direction we need to take in the U.S.

EPR is an evolutionary step; not a contradiction to bottle bills. I look forward to continuing this discussion, and hope it leads to equally progressive recycling solutions.

Kim Jeffery, CEO Nestle Waters North America Inc.

Mr. Jeffery stated on NPR a couple years ago, “"Everybody that sells a plastic container that's recyclable should have some deposit on it if we're going to do this thing the right way." It appears somewhat disingenuous now for Mr. Jeffery to flog beverage container deposit programs where consumers have their deposit refunded if they recycle, and instead promote an industry-designed system of Producer Responsibility that assesses a fee on the consumer to pay for government systems. Mr. Jeffery also states that the government bureaucracy only does “a reasonable job of diverting a very small portion of the waste stream”, yet he wants to implement a system funded by the consumer that achieves a lower recycling rate than the average of the 11 bottle deposit states. In fact, the beverage container recycling rates in bottle deposit states are two to three times higher than the national average! And Mr. Jeffery wants us to Rethink Recycling? Hmmm...

Former Director of California’s Beverage Container Deposit Program

Why not limit the types of plastics used for everyday items which would be the bulk amount.

I read of complaints about all the different types that require different processing - try to do something about that.

I remember the bottle bill in OR well - worked fine. Among other actions it helped to keep the state cleaner than others.

In regards to the first post -
If the company must cover the end cost of disposition then certainly the customer pays - who doe the poster think does it? Elves maybe?

To those families in need of water this Christmas, some notes from the Pacific Institute

Water
Global Water Crisis
Water and Conflict
Human Right to Water
Water Efficiency
Water Privatization
Soft Path to Water
Bottled Water

Community Strategies for Sustainability

Bottled Water and Energy
A Fact Sheet

The growing consumption of bottled water raises questions about the product’s economic and environmental costs. Among the most significant concerns are the resources required to produce the plastic bottles and to deliver filled bottles to consumers, including both energy and water.

The Pacific Institute estimates that in 2006:

* Producing the bottles for American consumption required the equivalent of more than 17 million barrels of oil, not including the energy for transportation
* Bottling water produced more than 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide
* It took 3 liters of water to produce 1 liter of bottled water

Total U.S. Consumption of Bottled Water in 2006

According to the Beverage Marketing Corporation, Americans bought a total of 31.2 billion liters of water in 2006, sold in bottles ranging from the 8-ounce aquapods popular in school lunches to the multi-gallon bottles found in family refrigerators and office water coolers. Most of this water was sold in polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles, requiring nearly 900,000 tons of the plastic. PET is produced from fossil fuels – typically natural gas and petroleum.

Energy Required to Make PET Plastic

According to the plastics manufacturing industry, it takes around 3.4 megajoules of energy to make a typical one-liter plastic bottle, cap, and packaging. Making enough plastic to bottle 31.2 billion liters of water required more than 106 billion megajoules of energy. Because a barrel of oil contains around 6 thousand megajoules, the Pacific Institute estimates that the equivalent of more than 17 million barrels of oil were needed to produce these plastic bottles.

Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Consumption of Bottled Water

The manufacture of every ton of PET produces around 3 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2). Bottling water thus created more than 2.5 million tons of CO2 in 2006.

Water Required to Make Bottled Water

In addition to the water sold in plastic bottles, the Pacific Institute estimates that twice as much water is used in the production process. Thus, every liter sold represents three liters of water.

Transporting and Recycling Bottled Water

More energy is needed to fill the bottles with water at the factory, move it by truck, train, ship, or air freight to the user, cool it in grocery stores or home refrigerators, and recover, recycle, or throw away the empty bottles. The Pacific Institute estimates that the total amount of energy embedded in our use of bottled water can be as high as the equivalent of filling a plastic bottle one quarter full with oil.

Sources:

Beverage Marketing Corporation estimate for 2006.

Plastics Europe. http://lca.plasticseurope.org/petb5.htm

I. Bousted. 2005. Eco-profiles of the European Plastics Industry: Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET), (Bottle grade).

Nestle's must think we don't know about the obscene markup already embodied in bottled water. To think that the Corporate animal's short term profits should out weight their products drain upon the environment in both short term and long term views while we pay them to handle their product's packaging? If Nestle's goal is really to achieve increased recycling then they should focus results of a the chosen recycling method. Thus Bottle Bills would win hands down as an effective methodology to recover their packing's resources.
But with Nestle it is about control and money profits. Effective recycling be damned.

I hope the people who reference the Natural Logic's EPR white paper have actually read it. (http://www.natlogic.com/EPR) It doesn't oppose bottle deposit policies (which several commenters have correctly called "the first EPR"). It does propose extending the effectiveness of well-designed financial mechanisms to a more comprehensive materials management solution.

Bottle bills work -- for bottles. Deposits on computers, tires, car batteries, etc work -- for those commodities. But though recovery rates are high, these are a small fraction of the waste stream; the challenge we face is to reduce, reuse, recover and recycle _most_ of that waste stream, not just subsets.

EPR can put the responsibility for effective recovery and recycling of materials that will become "waste" on the producer (or first importer) of those materials. That financial responsibility can provide: financial incentive to producers to redesign products and packaging to be less resource intensive, less toxic and more recyclable; financial incentives to support or create effective end-of-life recycling; and financial relief to local government that bear much of that burden today.

The good news is that there's momentum for EPR around the country. Here in California, CalRecycle "seeks a comprehensive approach for advancing EPR" and its predecessor, the California Integrated Waste Management Board, "adopted a set of Strategic Directives that included Strategic Directive 5: Producer Responsibility: This policy directs staff to seek statutory authority to foster "cradle-to-cradle" producer responsibility and develop producer-financed and producer-managed systems for product discards. Numerous local governments in California have demonstrated their support by adopting producer responsibility resolutions (hosted by the California Product Stewardship Council)."

But it can't succeed fast enough if it proceeds only product by product. We need "framework" legislation that greatly broadens the reach of the Extended Producer Responsibility / Product Steward approach.

To Sara Ost and Ben C's comments on putting the costs on the consumers: We disagree with Mr Jeffery's suggestion that consumers pay fees associated with their purchases, and tend to favor having producers pay fees associated with their production. There are arguments for both approaches, and we have not yet done the modeling to assess their relative merits. But it's not a simple either/or. If the fees are borne by producers, they may choose to pass costs on to consumers; on the other hand, producers that do a good job of lightening their footprints would pay less, and thus gain a market advantage. (By the way, to Ben C's call for "full" not "extended" producer responsibility, we completely agree; we just used the currently familiar term.)

There are many questions to be resolved -- some of them technically or logistically difficult, and some which require challenges to long-held and comfortable habits. But that's how innovation happens, and that's the kind of dialog we hoped to contribute to in producing our White Paper.

Yes, our work was conducted under contract to Coca-Cola -- and we made clear at the start that while our brains are for hire, our integrity and opinions are never for sale. We listened to Coke, to the stakeholders who participated in our Innovation Charrette, and various other reviewers. We took all their perspectives into account, and we drew our own conclusions (as we do in all out efforts to help companies and communities design, implement and measure profitable, effective sustainability strategies). And we made the recommendations that we thought best.

We look forward to further exploration, and we're happy to participate in any forum in which our perspective and experience might be helpful.

It starts at the home level. If everyone pitched in and did their share, it would simplify things at the landfill end. We can all make a difference.

We can also buy green products. Buy with green packaging. Also, if we have too much junk, we can call the proper companies to take it away and sort it for us, instead of tossing everything out to the curb in a pile.

I very much enjoyed reading Mr. Jeffery's article. Though I do not agree with most of it, seeing debate going on can only be a good thing. As I look at our part of the Pacific Ocean here in British Columbia Canada, my time spent in my boat is something I enjoy very much. Having traveled these waters for almost 3 decades now, I just can't help but notice how many plastic water bottles litter our beaches and are floating in our waters. From what I have learned, this problem is epidemic around the world. Maybe Nestle and other producers should be looking at recycling from a different angle? At one time, not long ago, there were no plastic bottles or plastic of any kind floating in our oceans and lakes. So how is it that the collection method or a proposed Bottle Bill is on the radar screen at Nestle? Should it not be this catastrophic issue first? Not long ago, every community got their milk, butter and cream from a bucket if they were in rural areas from their own milk producers (cows) and urban dwellers received their milk in bottles which were picked up when empty and full ones left in their place. Or we as consumers took our empties to the local grocer and picked up more milk. As I recall here in Canada, we did this with beer also. Worked quite well. Why does Nestle not look at revisiting this highly successful model? Perhaps, we could go back to public water fountains? Or heaven forbid, drinking water from our tap? What is missing in this discussion is the moral and ethical obligation that everyone of us has to do better and to raise the bar. That includes businesses. How does supporting a system that is deeply flawed while quibbling over how bottles are returned help with the real problem of plastics in every body of water on earth?? Maybe it is time to look at this from a perspective of where we have been, not where we should be going. I fail to see how educating the public that it is acceptable to shove everything comingled into a tote at the curb and that is somehow going to be made magical whole again because it is run up a conveyor belt and picked through makes any sense? Why not take the lead here? Nestle could return to a way of delivering consumables in a container to the consumer that is not harmful to the planet while reaping all the positive P.R. value that comes with that. The continued practice of dumbing down recycling that mimics "not being able to see the forest for the trees" seems to be just bad business. If we encourage good behaviour, everybody wins. As a kid I was addicted to Nestles Chocolate Quick powder. Being from a family that was fiscally challenged, it made drinking the powdered milk my mother made palatable. Keep making stuff we want to buy but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater because of poor packaging choices by bean counters advertising executives! I suggest instead of band-aid and Public Relations solutions we maybe come together using all the stakeholders to formulate real solutions that addresses all the issues and not just cherry pick a few that are P.R. related. Maybe look at all pulling on the same rope in the same direction?

Buddy
www.gibsonsrecycling.ca

Mr. Jeffery points in the right direction?

Years ago Jeffery said Deposits were the answer.

The Natural Logic Paper was paid for by the Beverage industry to support their position against deposits.

Deposits --- the first EPR --- work --- period.

So you think throwing everything into one bucket then crushing the heck out of it is the answer? The question must be --- How do you make junk?

Talk to the companies that, either use or process that junk --- they all know Single Stream is the problem, not the answer.

Can single stream get better? Maybe, but once the egg is scrambled it is very difficult and costly to unscramble it.

http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/201101/beyondoil.aspx Gives another view of plastic bottles.

Over 30 years in the U.S. and longer worldwide, deposits on beverage containers historically and consistently collect the cleanest and greatest number of containers from the largest number of people, over the longest period of time than any beverage container voluntary collection mechanism, thus creating more jobs in collecting,hauling,processing, and re manufacturing, and less environmental impact and depletion of oil and water resources.

Building our national recycling reliant industries to compete internationally will take mass public participation. Deposits on beverage containers give citizens daily opportunity to part take, and demonstrates to the children a behavior that will sustain them when we are gone,by engaging them in waste prevention as a way of life.

Interesting how Mr. Jeffery stated in a 2007 interview with NPR that he's not against container deposit programs... It appears someone has changed his tune...

It is unfortunate that Mr. Jeffrey states that "the problem with bottle bills is they create an enormous government bureaucracy," because that certainly is not the case here in Oregon. Oregon was the first state to pass a bottle bill (in 1971) and the bill has been enormously successful since then. Yet there is no employee of the State of Oregon whose main job is to administer the bottle bill. In my work for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality as a solid waste policy analyst since 1985, less than 5% of my time has been spent on bottle bill issues, yet I am the person who has done the most work on these issues for the State of Oregon. In fact, the bulk of implementation of the Oregon Bottle Bill is done by an industry group - the very capable Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative (OBRC). OBRC is a cooperative representing almost all of the distributors and beverage companies operating in Oregon, including Nestle. An industry group taking care to make sure that beverage containers get recycled - that is really what extended producer responsibility is all about, and that is what the industry cooperative OBRC does in Oregon under the auspices of the bottle bill.

Mr. Jeffrey also stated that bottle bills do nothing to address the paper recycling infrastructure. Actually, indirectly they do, by making the recycled paper supply much cleaner. In states without bottle bills, much of the curbside recycling is collected commingled, which means that all those glass and plastic containers are mixed in with the paper. Broken glass is a major contaminant in the paper, costing our paper mills millions of dollars in damage to equipment and forcing them to install additional cleaning technology. Much of the glass collected in those curbside programs also ends up being too contaminated and broken to be used to make new glass containers, and so it ends up being used as landfill cover or fill. In contrast, most of the glass collected in Oregon is collected under our bottle bill, and that glass goes back to a glass plant to be made into new bottles. Our paper recycling industry is thankful that we have a bottle bill in Oregon that helps keep all those bottles and cans out of their recycled paper. This may be one reason why Oregon has always been a leading state in curbside and other forms of recycling, as well as the first state with a bottle bill.

Peter Spendelow, Solid Waste Policy Analyst
Oregon Department of Environmental Quality

My jaw dropped when I came to the line "The problem with bottle bills is they create an enormous government bureaucracy". Here in NY we have less than one fulltime staff person in the DEC overseeing the program; is this what Nestle's calls "enormous?" With an average return rate of over 70% and more than 6 billion bottles and cans recycled each year in NY alone, the bottle bill is a great example of how effective EPR can be -- all at virtually no cost to taxpayers. The states with the highest recycling rates have both curbside recycling programs AND bottle bills. We have ample documentation in NY on how deposits reduce litter - something curbside programs are not designed for or effective at. If Nestle's is trying to project an image of being an environmentally responsible company, this article fails dismally.

I fail to see how anything original is being offered here. Unless I am mistaken this translates to:

1. Government regulation is bad, just...because it's bad.
2. Let corporations self-regulate with "help" from consumers.
3. We'll pass these costs of innovation on to consumers, but don't worry, it won't be much!
4. We'll "lead" nonprofit efforts in concert with consumers to "improve" and we'll assess internally with their "support".

This is what every corporation in every industry faced with environmental pressure wants. Nothing new here folks, move along.

It certainly is odd for Jeffery to suggest EPR could replace deposits for recycling cintainers, when in fact, a deposit system is the earliest and best example of EPR in the US. It was concieverd by Coke to enable them to retrieve their costly refillable bttles in the 60's, but they had a change of heart when the switched to throwawy containers. I guess that explains Coke's funding of the Naturalogic paper referred to by gfriend. Sigh. Same old, same old.

This editorial isn't logical. Mr. Jeffrey goes from his stated corporate goal: "At Nestlé Waters North America, we have a stated goal of achieving a 60 percent recycling rate for all PET plastic beverage containers in America by 2018," to then denounce the only type of program that consistently exceeds those recycling rates (container deposits), to then talking about the need for recycling more paper, and pushing for increased curbside programs.

In order to achieve his stated corporate goal, shouldn't he focus on that same goal?

It's interesting that the only "advocate" in the comment section is a paid consultant of a major bottling company. There is obviously a national campaign underway here and it isn't surprising to see Nestle involved. But the biased comments of the company's CEO are too filtered to make his view relevant to a sober discussion. Curbside recycling may benefit "litter" but valid studies indicate that curbside is no more a "solution to litter" than simply asking Americans to avoid littering. Deposits have worked everywhere tried …. without exception. That some states use unclaimed deposits for general funds to offset taxpayer needs isn't bad news. It's the states coffers that are paying for litter removal using taxpayers' general funds so putting some of this money back makes sense. Try again Mr. Jeffery.

Rethink a little more! First of all, recycling rates in N.Y. are 70-90%, sometimes higher, so why wait 8 years trying something new... if it's not broken don't fix it! Second, I own a redemption center, and on a weekly basis educate thousands of people. Third, paper recycling is not addressed because it is a BOTTLE bill, not a paper bill. Once again, it is all about saving money for the producers of the bottles and those producers not having the full responsibility of recycling their bottles.

Rethink bottled water.... This is all an effort to pass the buck on to the consumer. Now waiting for Keep America Beautiful to sign on. It's not time for Extended Producer Responsiblity, it's time for FULL producer responsiblity. How about being fully responsible for litter clean up, fully responsible for the pollution of making your products, fully responsible for the health impacts of your products on consumers and communities where your products are made. Interesting to note that Nestle's consultant and likely ghostwriter of this simplistic and self-serving piece is likely, Bill Shireman, the father of California's highly sucessful bottle bill. Also, Natural Logic... how about disclosing your client in this effort to kill bottle bills is Coke?

Total baloney from Nestle's. Anyone who believes this, I have a nice bridge in Brooklyn I can sell you. More lies here than Pinocchio could have come up with. It's pretty slick, all right.

Mr Jeffery points in the right direction.

Natural Logic has recently released a White Paper offering an EPR strategy for the US, exploring in some detail how it could work and what it would take.

You can find it at http://www.natlogic.com/EPR/

EPR typically requires companies/producers to cover the cost of end of use disposition/recycling. Pretty slick that Nestle states that consumers usually pay for this. Wishful thinking? Passing the buck?