BAN THE THROWAWAY BOTTLE & CAN!

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WHAT WENT RIGHT IN OREGON?

DIRE PREDICTION NO. 1: The bottle bill will not reduce litter.

FACT: Each year since the bill went into effect, 380 million fewer beverage containers have wound up alongside Oregon roads or in public dumps. Total litter in the state is down by 40 percent!

DIRE PREDICTION NO. 2: Beverage prices will rise and sales will fall.

FACT: Oregon beer prices and sales have kept pace with national trends. Though accurate figures are not available, the same appears to hold true for soft drinks as well.

DIRE PREDICTION NO. 3: The bottle bill will cause a loss of jobs.

FACT: A 1974 study by Oregon State University reported that the bill had actually created a net gain of 365 jobs. A loss of 350 jobs in production was more than offset by 615 new positions in the areas of delivery, warehousing, and retailing. The total payroll for beverage-related jobs rose $1.6 million!

DIRE PREDICTION NO. 4: People won't return bottles and cans.

FACT: Thanks to the bottle bill, about 95 percent of all Oregonians now return 95 percent of all the beverage containers they buy. Nine out of ten of these folks think the bottle bill is great!

And, in addition to the above benefits, the elimination of throwaway beverage containers has saved the state enough energy (1.4 trillion Btu's) to heat the homes of 50,000 residents!

ENTER MADISON AVENUE

"Fine," you say. "But if Oregon's bottle bill is such a smashing success, why have folks in eight other states since rejected ballot propositions to establish similar returnable bottle laws?"

Because after its humiliating defeat in Oregon, the container lobby geared up in earnest to smash bottle bills wherever they appeared. Altogether the lobby currently employs some 1,000 people—full time!—in this effort.

William Coors, president of the Adolf Coors Brewing Company—and the only major brewer to support container legislatione—stimates that his less enlightened colleagues and their allies spend about $20 million a year to beat back popular bottle-bill campaigns. In the state of Washington, for example, the lobby squelched a ballot measure by flinging $300,000 worth of misleading propaganda at the voters. The folks supporting the initiative spent only $6,000.

Since facts do not support its case, the container gang makes up its own . . . and pays big bucks to slick Madison Avenue PR firms who dress up the industry's collection of innuendoes, red herrings, and downright lies with nuts and cherries and chocolate syrup ... so you and I will swallow the garbage with a big grin.

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