ABOUT
Letters to the editor are the opinion of the author, and include both facts and the individuals personal perspective. Community members are encouraged to submit letters up to 250 words for consideration.
Sat., February 27, 2021
Wally Taylor
In Rod Boshart’s Gazette article on Feb. 19 regarding the Iowa Senate subcommittee discussing revising the Bottle Bill, he reported the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Ken Rozenboom, took umbrage at Jess Mazour of the Iowa Sierra Club stating that the proposed legislation would gut the bottle bill. But that is, in fact, what it would do.
Rozenboom’s bill would allow retailers, who have opposed the bottle bill for years, to refuse to participate in taking bottle and can returns and force consumers to travel 40 miles round trip to a redemption center to return the containers. But the bill provides no incentive to encourage more conveniently located redemption centers. It does not raise the nickel deposit, nor increase the handling fee to the redemption centers. So the result would be no retailers and effectively no redemption centers to take the returned containers. That would clearly gut the bottle bill.