Illinois Lieutenant Governor Pat Quinn is calling for the passage of a bottle bill in the state this year. Further, Quinn is pushing for the legislation to go into effect as soon as next year.
Under the I-Can plan, a 5-cent deposit would be placed on all beverage containers sold in the state. These would include glass, plastic, aluminum or other type of metal. It is estimated that 8 billion beverage cans were sold in the state in 2002.
In lobbying for passage of the bill, Quinn noted that 11 states now have successful bottle redemption programs, including California, New York, Massachusetts, Michigan and Iowa. In the past two decades, New York has diverted more than 75 billion cans from the waste stream; virtually all of them have been recycled. The bottle bill in Michigan created more than 4,600 jobs.
The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency would administer I-CAN. A consumer would pay 5 cents for each container purchased to the retail dealer, who passes the 5 cents along to the distributor, who then deposits it (along with a 2 cent redemption fee) to a new environmental state fund. The state then reimburses the redemption center 7 cents, which then gives the consumer back the original 5 cents. The redemption center - which could be the retail dealer or an automated “reverse vending machine” - earns 2 cents per container. Unclaimed deposits in the state account would be earmarked for environmental programs and a portion will be shared with municipal environmental programs.