Agenda - Council - 10/14/1980 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

- 5 - 1. CONTAINER DEPOSITS A deposit is an extra charge to the consumer to encourage reuse of a product. The deposit is refunded when the reusable portion of the product is returned. Although the deposit may be mandatory, the consumer may elect to forfeit the deposit and not return the reusable product. Deposit measures are limited to products that have a readily reusable component, such as beverage containers, tires or automobile hulks. Deposits provide an economic incentive to return a product to a central collection point so it can be used again with minimal recovery costs. A benefit of deposits is that a portion of the deposit may be used to defray the cost of recovering and properly disposing of products that are not returned. Mandatory deposit measures have been enacted by'Oregon, vermont, Michigan, Delaware, Iowa and Maine and have proven to be effective as a method of waste reduction. Similar action by the Minnesota Legislature would be required to implement mandatory deposit pro- grams in Minnesota. National estimates indicate that container deposit legislation can reduce the solid waste stream by an average of two to four per- cent. Michigan has experienced one of the highest reductions in their waste stream--six percent--due to recent deposit legisla- tion. 2. PACKAGING REDUCTION Three basic approaches to packaging reduction exist: the regu- latory approach, standardized packaging laws and the industrial education approach. The regulatory approach allows the state to review and suspend the use of packaging that constitutes a serious solid waste or environmental problem. Minnesota Statutes, Chapter 116.06 and Minnesota Rules SR-1 through SR-6 represent one form of the regulatory approach. The second approach--standardized packaging laws--would reauire certain products to be sold in packages meeting requirements for standard size, weight, durability and reusability. For example, based on national data for both the United States and Canada, generation rates (measured as packaging weight per capita) ex- perienced in 1958 could be achieved today using alternative manu- facturing technologies to produce lighter packages and through elimination of "over-packaging" (Love, 1974). These accomplish- ments could potentially reduce the solid waste stream by five percent. Lighter packages can be produced simply by using thinner packaging materials where customer specifications allow. However, Minnesota's current packaging law will not be able to reduce waste to a comparable degree since the majority of wasteful packaging is outside the scope of the law.