The House Environment and Water Committee takes another look at legislation to expand Oregon’s groundbreaking bottle bill. Katy Daily of the Oregon League of Conservation Voters says she’s feeling confident the bill will be approved.
HB 2184 doubles the deposits on bottles from a nickel to a dime. It adds more containers to the list of those that will require deposits, including sports drinks, juice drinks, bottled coffees and teas. Water bottles were added to the list earlier this year.
During today’s session lawmakers will consider amendments to the bill, but Daily doesn’t expect major changes to what’s already been approved. At last week’s hearing liquor and wine bottles were taken off the list, and the deposits won’t increase until 2015 at the earliest.
It also creates a system of redemption centers so that grocery stores don’t have to handle the extra load of bottle returns all by themselves.
The session starts at 3pm in Hearing Room D in the Capitol.
