Agenda - Council - 11/25/1980 - Laserfiche WebLink

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- 39 POTENTIAL INCENTIVES Discussed in this section are potential strategies that could pro- vide incentives for business participation in abatement projects. a. State and Federal The state and federal governments have the authority to estab- lish several possible incentives. They could impose a tax on products that reflect the real costs of packages, the hauling and landfilling cost included. They might also change some of the existing laws that currently favor the production, trans- portation and marketing of virgin material goods. The MPCA is looking now at establishing a state investment tax credit (like the 10-percent federal credit) that would then raise the total credit to 20 percent for new recycling equipment. Some other potential legislative options include allowing counties tO use the property tax assessment process to provide incen- tives to individuals, perhaps a lowering of the tax for th~se who actively recycle. Exemptions from sales tax for business firms that participate in recycling or resource recovery are another possibility. At the federal level, it may be possible to establish a set of income tax credits for individuals who carry out source separation. Another possibility, needing further study, is market subsidies; that is, guaranteeing the market through a multitiered 9overnment purchase system until prices are stabilized. County and Municipal The MPCA has suggested a model ordinance that, along with other enforcement strategies, recommends a recycler's rebate. The ordinance would allocate to recyclers the money haulers save by dropping off recycled materials, instead of making trips to the landfill. Such an arrangement assumes that the haulers are under contract with the city and are not already making all of the trips to the recyclers. Another potential method involves organized collection of source-separated items. Since the individual now pays a cer- tain fee for garbage to be hauled, why not pay that same fee to a hauler for picking up source-separated goods? Such a system would require that some organization of collection and billing be established among haulers and'the municipality or county. Also, it might be possible (with an organized collection sys- tem) to establish a program like SORT (Separate Our Recy- clables from Trash), which operates in Seattle, Washington. This would involve a user-based fee on collection where those with fewer bags or cans Of garbage would pay less (Mulligan,. 1979).