BAN THE THROWAWAY BOTTLE & CAN!

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During the 1976 bottle-bill campaign in Maine, for example, an industry representative suggested in a public debate that the proposed law would place a deposit on mayonnaise jars! Maine passed the legislation despite this terrifying prospect. Similarly, during the fight to pass a deposit law in Dade County, Florida, the PR firm hired by the container lobby ran a newspaper ad suggesting that the legislation would apply to all cans . .. not just those for beer and soft drinks. Dade County rejected the proposal. Throughout the country, the container lobby has repeatedly warned that bottle bills will raise beverage prices, cost jobs, and limit the consumer's "freedom of choice" . .. even though all available evidence points to the opposite conclusion.

ENTER THE WEEPING INDIAN

Now, should anyone think the can and bottle companies and their fellow travelers oppose bottle bills out of sheer selfinterest (God forbid) . . . why they'd like to set you straight! The industry claims to be as much against litter as the next guy . . . but what can it do? After all: "People start pollution. People can stop it."

Yes, that's the familiar slogan of Keep America Beautiful (KAB) . . . the folks who bring you the weeping Indian on TV. KAS is quite simply an industry front whose main job the past few years has been to divert your attention from deposit legislation by suggesting that if you and your friends would just quit tossing trash around ... there would be no problem. After all, the container lobby only makes, promotes, and sells nonreturnable bottles and cans! How could it be to blame?

The next time you see a KAB free "public service" spot on the tube, then, remember that [1] for starters, people can stop pollution by banning throwaways, and that [2] litter is only a small part of the problem with non-returnables.

Before 1974, several prominent conservation organizations—among them the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society—sponsored KAB's activities ... but after Roger Powers, the KAS president, testified against a proposed bottle bill in California, several of these groups quickly resigned. Even more jumped for shore after KAB's 1976 meeting, when William F. May—head man at the American Can Company—called bottle-bill supporters "Communists". So much for KAB.

WHAT ABOUT LOCAL BREWERS?

Even though bottle bills create jobs, save money, energy, and resources, and reduce litter and solid waste ... you'd naturally be downright flabbergasted if the container industry—and suppliers of steel and aluminum—didn't fight them with every weapon at their disposal. And it's not even too tough to figure out that supermarket chains prefer to handle merchandise—or the containers it comes in—only once . . . when it's generating income at the cash register.

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