CLEANER LANDSCAPES

Beverage containers wash into Knoxville's Third Creek (photo by Mark C. Campen)

Container deposits = cleaner landscapes—and don't let anyone tell you different. No, deposits don't absolutely eliminate litter. But based on decades of data, clean-up records and other evidence in deposit states, Tennessee can expect to see the volume of beverage-container litter shrink by at least 80 percent for cans and bottles only, and by at least 40 percent for litter overall, in the wake of a 5-cent deposit on most beverage containers.

Beverage containers account for roughly half of Tennessee's overall litter volume (far more by weight, and probably not much less by piece-count). You may find this surprising, because roadside debris also includes fast-food packaging, plastic grocery sacks, bits of tire tread, the occasional appliance or mattress and so on. Nonetheless, by every consistent measure, beverage containers are the number-one offender statewide.

We encourage you to see for yourself, using the volume measure:

Put on a pair of gloves and sturdy shoes, and arm yourself with a dozen or so 13-gallon, drawstring-type trash bags (don't use 30-gallon trash bags, because you won't be able to pack them full enough for consistent counting). Now, find a typically littered stretch of Tennessee roadway, and begin collecting beverage cans and bottles separately from everything else. (Feel free to make a note of the mattresses, washing machines and so on, but in truth these are relatively rare.) Fill each bag very full, then tie it closed. After you've cleaned up a representative stretch of roadside (perhaps an eighth of a mile, both sides), compare the numbers of container bags to the number of non-container bags. It's a safe bet your results will be somewhere between 30 percent and 70 percent containers, and very likely close to the 50 percent average that POP observed at the conclusion of its "X Marks the Spot" separated cleanup in 2005/2006.

And if you are wondering what this bill does about non-container litter, be assured of two things:

One, deposits have a trickle-down impact on littering in general. The less littered a space is, the less it encourages littering. This appears to be why the state of Maine has roughly 4 ounces of litter per person per year, compared to Tennessee's four POUNDS of litter per person per year. 

And two: The Tennessee bill assures the continued funding of the current litter-control program known as the County Litter Grants, which uses jail crews to pick up roadways and provides funding for litter education and Keep Tennessee Beautiful. This program is currently paid for by a "litter tax" on beverages sold in Tennessee (the tax is based on volume sales of beer and sollar sales of soft drinks, but it equals about 1/8 cent per container). These taxes will automatically be eliminated if the proposed Tennessee Recycling Refunds bill passes; but the bill stipulates that the funding is replaced with a flat tax of 1/8 cent, to be used in exactly the same way the funding is used now.