Bottle Laws Expand to Water

Most states don’t have bottle deposit laws. Some of those states that do have the laws are expanding them to include deposits on bottled water and other beverages. Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Most states don’t have bottle deposit laws. Some of those states that do have the laws are expanding them to include deposits on bottled water and other beverages. Lester Graham reports:


When Ed Solomon drives up in his delivery truck, he’s not just taking
in cases of soda and other beverages:


“Most every stop we go to as we deliver products, we take the empties
out, and the crates also. But, WHOOO! Yes. Sometimes there’ll be a
lot of empties at various stops.”


Solomon delivers Faygo beverages in Michigan. That state has the
nation’s highest deposit on bottles and cans: ten cents each. And
whether it’s Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Budweiser or Miller, if distributors
drop off product, they have to pick up the empties that people bring
back for the deposit refund.


Of the ten states that have bottle deposit laws, some are adding the deposit requirement to new beverages such as bottled water.
Forty other states have no deposit law at all.


Johnny Georges operates the convenience store Stadium Party Shop in
Ann Arbor, where Ed Solomon is dropping off new product and picking up
the empties. If the law in Michigan is expanded, it would mean Georges
and his employees would have to take in a lot more kinds of empty
bottles and cans.


“I think it’s going to take a little space in my opinion because there
are so many waters out there, so many juices, so many other brands.
So, it’s going to take a little space. Hopefully we’re going to
organize it as usual. And… we’ll see.”


Not everyone is that receptive to the idea. Beverage distributors and
major grocery chains are lobbying hard against expanding the deposit
law. Distributors don’t want to hassle with picking up the empties.
Major grocery chains say they don’t like the mess of people bringing
empties into the stores. They don’t like losing floor space to make
room for bottle and can collection areas. The bigger stores also have
to invest in bar code scanners to automatically count and sort the huge
volume of empties being returned.


A lot of small stores like Johnny George’s don’t have the fancy
equipment. Here, Georges just set aside a neatly organized area where
it collects and sorts the bottles and cans. He says he knows that an
expanded bottle deposit law would mean a little more hassle, but he
doesn’t mind:


“I like the new law. I hope they pass it. That takes a lot of trash
out of the street. And it’s good for the environment in the meantime.”


And Georges isn’t the only one who thinks it would be good for the environment.
Polls show a large majority of people support the idea.


James Clift is with the environmental group Michigan Environmental
Council. He says it’s time to expand the law to other containers.
When the bottle law was written 30 years ago, beer and soda pop cans
and bottles were the biggest concerns.


“But since then, bottled water, tea, other beverages, energy drinks,
we’ve got a whole new set of drinks on the market. And they’re a
larger and larger segment of the market to the point they may become
the majority of the market in the next five to ten years.”


Clift says his state needs to catch up to the changing market, but the
majority of the states don’t require a deposit on cans and bottles at
all. And Clift argues, you can tell when you’re traveling in one of
those states:


“You know, because you see all the trash along the roadways, you see
trash cans filled with bottles and cans and it just seems so unnatural
for someone who grew up in Michigan, you know, to throw away a bottle
or a can. Luckily, we’ve been programmed to know that that has value
and has other uses.”


So people there bag or box up their empties, take them to the store, the
stores can sort them and guys like Ed Solomon can take them back to be
recycled:


“It’s hectic, yes, it really is, you know, to deal with these empties.
Yeah, but, that’s the law I guess.”


And if the can and bottle deposit law is expanded to, and other drinks, as it has been some states, more distributors
and grocers in Michigan will find the job a little more hectic… while
40 other states do little to nothing to reduce the number of cans and
bottles headed for the landfill.


For the Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

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Does Fair Trade Coffee Work?

Coffee beans can be pretty confusing these days.
At times it can seem like a political, even a
moral decision. You might want to buy those pricey specialty beans,
but now the supermarket also carries beans labeled Fair Trade
Certified. That might seem like the nicer thing to do for the farm
workers – and the environment. Julie Grant takes a look at those
claims:

Transcript

Coffee beans can be pretty confusing these days. At times it can seem like a political, even a
moral decision. You might want to buy those pricey specialty beans,
but now the supermarket also carries beans labeled Fair Trade
Certified. That might seem like the nicer thing to do for the farm
workers – and the environment. Julie Grant takes a look at those
claims:


Ahhh… it smells great in here. The owner of this coffee shop travels
the world in search of the best coffees. Linda Smithers has gone to
places such as South and Central America, Africa, and southern Asia to
visit farms and to taste coffee. She imports her favorites and roasts
them at her store.


And she has high expectations. Smithers wants to make sure that if
you’re paying a few dollars for a specialty coffee, it’s a satisfying
personal experience:


“And coffee should be able to do that for you. It should bring you
closer to you, and closer to the farmer. You should feel like you know
the farmer. And you feel passion and an intimacy with that farmer.”


I should probably have mentioned, Smithers really loves coffee.
She says the best coffees are grown on farms that are good to the
coffee trees, the local water, and the workers:


“Happy workers, safe workers, produce better coffee. They just do. I
see it every time I go to a farm. I see it when a worker enjoys what
they’re doing and feel they’re getting a fair price. They’re just like us. You
would not enjoy working and at the end of the day being given 20 cents.
You wouldn’t be happy with that. You wouldn’t work in a pleasant
way. And you wouldn’t pay attention to picking the ripe beans rather than the unripened beans.”


The Fair Trade label claims it’s found one way to help keep coffee
farmers happy and safe. The Fair Trade certification is supposed to be
a guarantee that farm co-operatives will get at least $1.21 for a pound
of beans. When coffee prices are low, that can be twice what other
farmers are paid. Fair Trade also promises farm workers have safe
conditions and are paid a living wage.


Michigan State University Professor Dan Jaffee wanted to know if the
Fair Trade system was doing what it set out to do:


“The Fair Trade movement claimed to be able to help bring them out of
poverty, improve their farming practices, make them more sustainable
and just generally improve conditions a lot, and I was interested in
finding out whether that was the case.”


Jaffee spent a few years in Oaxaca, Mexico studying two farming
communities. Some coffee farmers were part of Fair Trade
cooperatives, some decided against it. He’s just published a book called
Brewing Justice to report his findings. Jaffee says families
that joined Fair Trade were more food secure when the market price of
coffee fell:


“That is, they have food shortages much less of the time. They have
significantly greater access to animal protein, foods like milk and
meat and cheese in their diet. And they’re essentially able to feed
their children much more of the time than their neighbors, who were
really, at the time the coffee prices were at their low point at the
time I was doing my research in 2001, 2002, 2003, who were definitely
showing signs of malnutrition and there was a significant problem with malnutrition
in these communities.”


Fair Trade is still only a small fraction of the coffee market, but
its share of customers is growing, and the big players are taking
notice. Nestle is marketing Fair Trade products in the UK, and you can
find the Fair Trade seal at your neighborhood Starbucks. Only 3.7%
of Starbucks coffee is Fair Trade certified, but Jaffee says
that small percentage still makes Starbucks the single largest buyer of
Fair Trade coffee in the US.


Smaller coffee shop owners, such as Linda Smithers, also
buys some Fair Trade coffee. But Smithers doesn’t think guaranteeing a
specific price is the best way to encourage farms to grow the best
coffee:


“You’re given a price regardless of the quality. I have a problem
with that. I do not think that’s a sustainable agricultural model.
Remember, I’m a coffee person. I’m not a cause person, I’m
a coffee person. And to me, sustainable is: the product must be
outstanding and have good sociological and ecological practices, then
get a fair price.”


Smithers believes farms that treat workers and the environment well
naturally have the best tasting coffee and will always get a fair
price in the specialty coffee market.


Some conservative economists agree with her. They say the Fair Trade movement
will only continue to grow if looks beyond the socially-conscious crowd and continues
to improve the taste and consistency. That’s what people eyeing those gourmet coffee beans
want.


Smithers says Fair Trade has already been a success in that it’s put
issues of working conditions and the environment on the table…
and she could sit and drink a cup and talk about that for hours.


For the Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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