Got a Penny? Support Recycling in Michigan!
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| Focusing Recycling on The Entire Waste Stream |
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Michigan has one of the worst recycling rates in the U.S., and the lowest in the Midwest. This is a fairly common situation in bottle bill states, where the focus gets put on drink containers. Those searching for ways to expand recycling often revert back to the deposit system which captures a large percentage of a single category of items, but ignores millions of other recyclable items.
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Recycling Rates
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| Minnesota |
45.6% |
| Indiana |
35.0% |
| Illinois |
32.5% |
| Wisconsin |
24.6% |
| Ohio |
23.5% |
| Michigan |
20.0% |
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(Source: Biocycle Magazine, January 2004)
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Deposit systems have little impact on overall recycling, but cost consumers in higher prices on drink items and other products.
Expansion of the bottle deposit law would cost $60 million, but only increase recycling in Michigan by less than 1%.
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| Rep. Goeff Hansen, a grocery store owner, is concerned about the potential cost of expansion of the bottle bill, but also about the lack of recycling in his district and the slow erosion of recycling in Michigan. The idea of a one-penny transaction fee to fund recycling was developed as a result of meetings with others in the food distribution and retailing industry. The legislation has been introduced in HB 5163. Also introduced was a House Joint Resolution, which would enable the Penny Plan for Recycling Makes Cent$ proposal to be put up to a vote of the people on the November 2006 ballot and would assure everyone that the penny transaction fee would not increase and the funds would not be used for projects unrelated to recycling. |
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Click on the penny for more details on the Penny Plan for Recycling Makes Cent$:
Click here to send an email of support to your State Representative.
Click here to send an email of support to your State Senator.
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