Tag: bottled

Money Back for Water Bottles

  • Nationally, we go through more than 30 billion non-carbonated drinks every year (Photo by Lester Graham)

Most states don’t have bottle deposit laws to encourage people to return their empties. Only eleven states do. Now, some are expanding their recycling programs to include bottled water. Sadie Babits reports the states know requiring a deposit for the bottles will keep them from ending up in landfills:

Transcript

Most states don’t have bottle deposit laws to encourage people to return their empties. Only eleven states do. Now, some are expanding their recycling programs to include bottled water. Sadie Babits reports the states know requiring a deposit for the bottles will keep them from ending up in landfills:

Every time Mary Nemmers buys a bottled beverage, she’s pays a five cent deposit at the register.

She wants to get that money back eventually. So she saves up her bottles and once a month brings them here to New Seasons Market in Portland, Oregon.

(sound of bottles being sorted)

Nemmers thinks this is a pretty convenient system. She gets to shop while a store employee sorts and hand counts her bottles.

Today Nemmers is getting nine dollars and change for her empties. While she’s glad to get that money back, she’s excited to learn that Oregon’s bottle deposit program has expanded.

“I just got some news that they’ll take back all the cans for deposits. Not just the ones that they sell. That started in January and that saves me an extra trip.”

That’s only part of the change. People in Oregon now also get five cents for every water and flavored water bottle they return to stores. That ends up being a lot of bottles.

Nationally, we go through more than 30 billion non-carbonated drinks every year. And that number is growing. Most of them end up in a landfill.

For Heather Schmidt, it makes sense to require a deposit for these bottles. She runs the sustainability program at New Seasons.

“We’re getting more back from our customers and that’s a good thing (chuckles). And we know that there’s quite a bit of water purchased, you know, and we’re selling it we want to take it back.”

Out of the eleven states that have bottle deposit programs, Oregon is one of the first to include bottles for water and other non-carbonated drinks.

Maine includes just about every beverage bottle. Connecticut adds bottled water to its program in April. New York and Massachusetts are debating similar expansions.

Mary Nemmers says it was about time that her state recognize that something needed to be done to make sure water bottles stay out of landfills.

“Because I do a lot of walking and I’ve seen lots and lots of water bottles thrown around and in trash cans. I assume that the expansion will reduce that and I’d like to see Oregon stay on the cutting edge of recycling.”

Not everyone is thrilled.

I spoke with the president of the Northwest Grocery Alliance who told me stores want recycling off their property.

A spokesman for the major food outlet Winco said the same thing. Stores say it’s messy to deal with “garbage” and stores have to dedicate staff time to recycling.

Heather Schmidt says at New Seasons Market, they don’t mind.

“Operationally, because we’ve increased the volume, it does mean we’ve had to add some staff labor to that to process but it’s something that we’re committed to.”

While most of the bottles are hand counted at New Seasons Market stores, large chain grocery stores use reverse vending machines.

I can stick a redeemable bottle into the machine. The machine checks to make sure it’s the right kind of bottle. Once it’s accepted, the bottle gets crushed and I get my five cents. Those crushed bottles, along with the plastic ones, end up here.

(sound of recycling plant)

We’re inside a glass and plastic bottle recycling plant. It’s a labyrinth of conveyer belts and equipment. The last drops of stale beer and old soda pop in the bottles make it smell sort of like your gym shoes meet the town dump.

Sadie: “Can we check out where the plastic bottles go?”

John: “Yes, We’ll go back this way.”

That’s John Anderson. He’s the President of the Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative.

“Now, the plastic, we have seen an increase, but we’re only two months into this expansion at this point and it’s a slower time of year for water and flavored water.”

We stop in front of three bales of recycled plastic that remind me of massive hay bales.

I can pick out the water bottles scrunched together with a lot of soda bottles. These plastic bales will be sold to manufacturers – mostly overseas – who will turn this plastic back into something useable.

Anderson says all of the glass though, stays local and gets turned back into beer bottles.

Bottle deposits work.

The states that have bottle deposit laws have dramatically high bottle recycling rates – as high as Michigan’s 97%.

But the U.S. average is below 40%. The rest of those bottles spend forever in a landfill.

For The Environment Report, I’m Sadie Babits.

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Kicking a Chemical Out of Cans

  • Tomatoes are posing a problem for a BPA-free lining - they are so acidic they can eat through it (Photo by Scott Bauer, courtesy of the USDA)

More than a hundred studies have linked a chemical in plastic to health problems. Things like breast cancer, prostate cancer, diabetes, and early puberty. This chemical, bisphenol-A or BPA, is used to coat the inside of baby formula cans and almost all food and soda cans. Rebecca Williams visits one company that’s found a safer can:

Transcript

More than a hundred studies have linked a chemical in plastic to health problems. Things like breast cancer, prostate cancer, diabetes, and early puberty. This chemical, bisphenol-A or BPA, is used to coat the inside of baby formula cans and almost all food and soda cans. Rebecca Williams visits one company that’s found a safer can:

(sound of forklift backing up, pumpkin seeds pouring out of roaster)

It’s pumpkin seed roasting day at Eden Foods. It’s a natural foods company based in Michigan. It sells things like rice, canned beans, and all kinds of packaged fruits and sauces.

Michael Potter is the company’s president. More than a decade ago, he came across some news reports out of Europe.

“And I learned all the can linings in the USA were lined with this lining that leaches BPA into foods from the can.”

That got him thinking, and researching. Then he started badgering his can manufacturers.

“We virtually begged them to provide us an alternative. We persisted in hounding them and eventually the Ball Corporation said they’d make a can with an old lining they used to make.”

The lining’s made from a plant resin instead of the epoxy resin with BPA. The thing was, it would cost Eden Foods 14 percent more – that’s about 2 cents a can.

But Michael Potter says he had to make the switch.

“We’re selling this not only to people that we don’t know, in the market, we’re feeding it to our children, our grandchildren and ourselves – we didn’t want to eat bisphenol A.”

But there was one problem. He couldn’t make the switch for canned tomatoes.

Tomatoes are acidic, and they can eat through the plant resin can lining. That could lead to bacteria or rust getting into the food.

“There is no alternative for high acid foods other than bisphenol-A lining at this point. We are urging, nudging, demanding a bisphenol-A free alternative. And we’re optimistic we’ll end up with one.”

But the metal can industry says those alternatives just don’t exist right now.

John Rost is with the North American Metal Packaging Alliance. He says the industry is trying to find new materials. But he says shoppers shouldn’t worry about eating canned food.

“The levels of BPA that are coming from epoxy can linings are exceedingly low. We’re talking low parts per billion. That level has been deemed safe by the European Food Safety Authority, Health Canada and the US FDA.”

That’s true, but Health Canada has declared BPA toxic. It’s making moves to limit its use.

A number of independent scientists debate that there’s any safe level of BPA.

Maricel Maffini studies BPA at Tufts University School of Medicine. She says they’ve seen harmful effects on lab animals at the same very low levels of BPA that are leaching into our food from cans.

She says that’s because BPA acts like the hormone estrogen.

“You just need a tiny little signal to trigger an effect. So I think it’s unfair to say there is a safe dose because as scientists we cannot say that yet. We have not found a dose that is low enough where we don’t see effects.”

She says babies and kids are the most at risk. She says BPA has caused lasting damage in lab animals when the animals were exposed to the chemical both before and after birth.

“I think we should be concerned, I think we should limit our consumption of canned foods especially if you are pregnant or if you have babies.”

It’s possible that US can makers will be forced to stop using BPA. Leaders in Congress have introduced bills that could soon ban BPA in all food and beverage containers.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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The Energy Use of Bottled Water

  • All that energy goes into making the plastic bottles, treating the water, and, of course, shipping - sometimes from as far away as the South Pacific. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Bottled water burns up a lot of energy.

Rebecca Williams reports on a new study

that figured out how much:

Transcript

Bottled water burns up a lot of energy.

Rebecca Williams reports on a new study

that figured out how much:

Bottled water burns up a lot of energy.

Rebecca Williams reports on a new study

that figured out how much:

We Americans love our bottled water, for a lot of reasons. We actually drink more bottled water than beer.

And that bottled water uses lots of energy. As much as 2000 times more than tap water.

That’s from a new study in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

All that energy goes into making the plastic bottles, treating the water, and of course shipping. Sometimes from as far away as the South Pacific.

Peter Gleick is an author of the study. He says if you want to use less energy, tap water is the clear winner.

“Tap water may require a thousandth of the energy that it takes to bottle water. And the tap water in the United States is typically of very, very high quality, as high or higher than most of our bottled waters.”

He says buying local bottled water saves energy. So he says try to buy as close to home as you can.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Gl Compact Goes to Washington

  • Lake Superior's South Shore, Wisconsin (Photo by Dave Hansen, courtesy of the EPA)

There’s a new agreement that says the
Great Lakes water has to stay in the Great Lakes.
It’s been approved now by all eight of the states
and the two Canadian provinces that border the
Lakes. Rick Pluta reports the agreement is now
on its way to Congress:

Transcript

There’s a new agreement that says the
Great Lakes water has to stay in the Great Lakes.
It’s been approved now by all eight of the states
and the two Canadian provinces that border the
Lakes. Rick Pluta reports the agreement is now
on its way to Congress:

The Great Lakes region was worried that drier parts of the country and the world might
be eyeing the largest supply of freshwater on Earth.

Ten years ago, a Canadian company got permission from Ontario to send millions of
gallons of water to Asia via tanker ships. Fierce opposition from around the Great Lakes
region put an end to that project. But regions neighboring the Great Lakes basin still see
them as a possible cure for their water shortages.

Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm says the Great Lakes compact offers an answer to
anyone outside the region who wants to get their hands on that water.

“Can’t touch this. (laughs) That’s what we say. They need to look at their own way of
preserving and managing their resources.”

When Granholm signed new laws in a ceremony here on the Lake Michigan shoreline,
Michigan became the last of the eight Great Lakes states to formally join the compact.

The compact was put together by leaders of the US states and two Canadian provinces
that border the lakes. Granholm says, once it’s adopted by Congress and signed by the
president, it will give the Great Lakes states new authority to protect their water.

“This allows me as governor to veto any large diversion of water, so we can put a stop to
it ourselves. It really allows us the autonomy of protecting these Great Lakes overall.”

It took 10 years for the Great Lakes states to get the compact through their legislatures
and signed by their governors. Members of Congress from the region are hoping it won’t
take quite so long to get it to the president’s desk.

Chicago Congressman Rahm Emanuel is expected to lead the effort to get the compact
through the US House. He says congressional hearings will begin this year and the
compact should be approved in time for it to be sent to the new president in early 2009.
Emanuel says he’s not expecting any problems.

“Because people understand and know, this is our Yellowstone Park, this is our Grand
Canyon. This is a national treasure. There’s been a lot of work and years of effort to get
this done. The good news is a lot of the chairmen of the committees that are relevant, come
from the Midwest, know how important the Great Lakes are and will act with due speed
in getting it done.”

Both the Republican presidential candidate John McCain and Democratic candidate
Barak Obama have said they would sign the compact.

Environmental groups are among those backing the deal. But many of them say it
still comes up short because it does not stop bottled water from leaving the Great Lakes
region.

Cyndi Roper is with Clean Water Action.

“Water is water. You can’t fill a tanker with water and take it out of the Great Lakes, but
you can fill that same tanker with bottles of water and ship them to other parts of the
country and other parts of the world, and we believe as we move forward, that’s a very
dangerous precedent to set.”

She says that’s because many millions of gallons can still trickle out of the lakes – even if
it’s 12 ounces at a time.

For The Environment Report, this is Rick Pluta.

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Coalition Comes to Bottled Water Agreement

A conservation group and an industry coalition have come
to an agreement on one of the stickiest issues hanging up a regional water use agreement. The question is whether bottled water exports are considered a diversion of Great Lakes water. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports:

Transcript

A conservation group and an industry coalition have come to an agreement on one of the stickiest issues hanging up a regional water use agreement. The question is whether bottled water exports are considered a diversion of Great Lakes water. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports:


Officials from the Great Lakes states and provinces are trying to hammer out a regional water use agreement known as Annex 2001. They’ve been trying to come to a deal for the last four years. So the National Wildlife Federation and the Council of Great Lakes Industries agreed on some of the most contentious issues.


One of those is bottled water. The groups recommended that bottled water exports be allowed in the agreement, but that states be allowed to enact their own limits or bans. But some environmental groups are unhappy about the proposal. David Holtz is Michigan director of Clean Water Action.


“We don’t care how water leaves the basin. What’s the difference if it leaves in twelve-ounce bottles or a pipe? I mean, it’s still gone.”


The Council of Great Lakes Governors has a December deadline to agree on a plan.


For the GLRC, I’m Sarah Hulett.

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Study Sparks Concerns Over Airplane Water

  • The EPA has found that some of the water served on airplanes is contaminated, and are advising people to be cautious. (Photo by Lester Graham)

New data suggest you might want to think twice before drinking coffee or tea on an airplane. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Christina Shockley explains why:

Transcript

New data suggest you might want to think twice before
drinking coffee or tea on an airplane. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Christina Shockley explains why:


The water on airplanes is tested by the Environmental Protection Agency. Recently, researchers found water that contained coliform bacteria on about one in six of the planes they tested.


The bacteria is usually harmless, but can signal the presence of other, more dangerous organisms.


Cynthia Bergman is with the EPA. She says there’s no need to panic, but concerned passengers should choose other options on board.


“Canned or bottled beverages or bring bottled water onto the flight, and they shouldn’t be shy about asking the flight attendant if the water used for the coffee or tea was made with bottled water, or if it was brought to a boil.”


Bergman says the EPA has not seen any major outbreaks of illness from airplane water. She says symptoms could include nausea and stomach pains. Researchers don’t know yet where the bacteria is coming from, but twelve major airlines have agreed to test the water and disinfect their planes more frequently.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Christina Shockley.

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