May 11, 2007

Hello all -

You did it! Your calls and emails helped us get the bottle bill through the Senate. Now we are onto the House where the bigger challenge awaits us. Below is the update from our Coalition partner. Please contact your representatives - if you know they support it, say thank you. If you don't know where they stand - or worse yet they oppose - please urge their support. With your help, we can pass it THIS year.

Regards,

Cheryl Dunson

As many of you may know the Expansion of the Bottle Bill passed the State Senate Wednesday 26-7. It is now on the House calendar where we need all of your help.

PLEASE CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVE and ASK THEM TO SUPPORT

SB 1289 without amendments

The Senate bill: • Effective October 1, 2008,non-carbonated, non-alcoholic, non-dairy, non-soy or rice milk beverages packaged in PET, aluminum and glass containers 20 ounces or less become subject to the existing beverage container deposit redemption provisions as amended by this act. (these are mostly consumed away from home and thrown in the trash and incinerated rather than recycled by homeowners)

• Increases the handling fee from 2 cents to three cents for any non-alcoholic beverage in a container subject to the bill’s provisions. This increase is effective October 1, 2007. (helps grocers cover their costs).

• Requires dealers operating a place of business over75,000 sq. ft. to certify to the DEP that they have sufficient redemption capacity to handle at least 70%of their sales volume of covered beverage containers. It also requires these businesses to locate redemption areas newly established or expanded after July 1, 2007within 200 ft of the main entrance; if an existing areas is not within that distance the business must post a sign within 10 ft of the entrance stating the area's location. (relieves pressure on grocery stores by making big box stores do their part).

• Exempts private label producers who sell not more than 250,000 20 ounce of less beverage containers from the bill’s provisions.

• Requires restaurants to only to redeem beverage containers consumed on the premises.

Those who say we should just work on increasing curbside ignore the fact that our curbside rates hover around 30% while 65-70% of deposit containers are returned and recycled thus saving petroleum resources, the added energy needed to make new containers from raw rather than recycled materials and eliminating the greenhouse gas emissions related to that energy use as well as those emitted when the containers are incinerated. Call today to give your Representative the support he or she needs to stand up to the special interests and vote for this important environmental bill! Many thanks,

Jessie Stratton

Better Bottle Bill Coalition

Jessie Stratton

Stratton Resources, LLC

94 Goodwin Circle

Hartford, CT 06105

860-232-1890

jessiestratton@ sbcglobal. net

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