Overflowing with Trash in the Rio Grande Valley (Albuquerque, Los Lunas: fit in, for sale)
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It is amazing the amount of trash and garbage tossed out on the road, left in store parking lots, and intentionally dumped all over this area. I don't think that being poor or having limited income means you will also collect and toss trash around as a matter of demographics, but I could be wrong. I have witnessed more intentional trash dumping and people just heaving things out the window or out of the beds of their trucks in the Los Lunas/Belen/Meadowlake areas than I have ever seen. Nothing more pleasant to see when you are shopping than all the dirty diapers scattered around our local discount store parking lot, most not even wrapped up. The only other reason I can think of for most of the dumping and heaving, besides that some people are just piggy and simply don't care, is that the local garbage companies are to blame. Every company charges you for each and every individual company can and charges even more for every single other item that will not fit in the company can, people are basicly being "fee-ed" to death and the result is just to throw everything out on the road or stack it in the yard. I have lived in areas where the garbage companies negeotiate a contract with the city and you can put anything out on the curb and it will be picked up, all for the same price. You just don't see "trash trailers" made from old truck beds stacked 8-10 feet high with overflowing food garbage that attracts vermin, insects, and stray critters in areas with more sensible garbage policies. I have had a 1/2 full can of beer tossed out of a truck, actually hitting my car and covering it with liquid. People drive out on all the vacant land around here and dump hundreds of tires, tv's appliances, and everything else. What is the problem?????
I agree. It is a blessing that we have a small population because the rate at which people litter here is amazing. It seems like about a third of the people just litter without a care.
I seem to recall a news story about the problem- much of the area has no municipal waste collection, so some people hire private waste collection, and some just throw their filth about.
Living in a place with higher property and gross receipts taxes has its benefits.
In our area of Rio Arriba, home owners are mandated to have trash pick-up. But that doesn't stop 'em! There still is trash, junk, & crap thrown everywhere: along roads, in arroyos, in the middle of nowhere. I imagine all the beer bottles & cans thrown along the roads are so they won't have an open bottle if stopped. It's pretty sad.
My experience with bottle deposit laws in my old home state of Michigan tells me that a similar law in New Mexico (I'm not holding my breath) would have a very significant effect on the crap-ola that accumulates on every roadway in New Mexico.
What happened there is that not only did far fewer cans and bottles get thrown from vehicles, but people actually started paying attention to OTHER stuff as well. I can't explain that...but the volume of roadside trash diminished significantly, far in excess of what might have occured merely by removing cans and bottles from the side of the road.
Despite all the moaning and groaning about deposits (10 cents per can or bottle), etc. the law worked very well, and it could in NM also. MI has had a few decades of experience since the first law was passed, so there's a track record to follow and a lot of the problem solving has been done by states with bottle laws. Most bottles and no cans, obviously, are refilled....but they're recycled at a huge rate. People patrol roadsides, campgrounds and public trash cans to collect containers with a deposit on them. Like having trash pickup but it's done for free.
There is markedly less roadside trash, period, in Michigan and other bottle law states. Though I know this might endanger the un-official New Mexico flower ( a Wal-Mart bag on a fence or brush) it would nonetheless be worthwhile.
I know I'm swimming upstream here, but the truth is there for anyone to see. My Michigan friends are genuinely shocked at the amount of litter here when they come to visit.
I'm sure one problem they run into in Michigan, which would be a much bigger problem in New Mexico, is the interstate deposit problem.
If NM requires manufacturers buy back their cans/bottles for, say, 5 cents, you'll see tractor-trailer-loads (from all surrounding states and Mexico) full of the goods. This will probably have the net effect of raising prices closer to 50 cents per unit within the state, and will drive some manufacturers to eliminate selling in-state altogether.
The Aluminum cans are already profitable enough for people to gather them, without the deposit. Plastic and glass bottles, on the other hand, would need the deposit.
Since many of NM's cities are pushing people into recycling glass and plastic, maybe a deposit law wouldn't be such a bad idea. We'd just want to make sure to do it right and plan for the onrush of Arizona, Colorado, Texas, and Mexico cans and bottles on our roads.
I'm sure one problem they run into in Michigan, which would be a much bigger problem in New Mexico, is the interstate deposit problem.
If NM requires manufacturers buy back their cans/bottles for, say, 5 cents, you'll see tractor-trailer-loads (from all surrounding states and Mexico) full of the goods. This will probably have the net effect of raising prices closer to 50 cents per unit within the state, and will drive some manufacturers to eliminate selling in-state altogether.
The Aluminum cans are already profitable enough for people to gather them, without the deposit. Plastic and glass bottles, on the other hand, would need the deposit.
Since many of NM's cities are pushing people into recycling glass and plastic, maybe a deposit law wouldn't be such a bad idea. We'd just want to make sure to do it right and plan for the onrush of Arizona, Colorado, Texas, and Mexico cans and bottles on our roads.
There is a far larger population base within a days drive of the Michigan border than there is in New Mexico, so why would you think importing empty cans or bottles would be worse in NM?
Containers are marked as returnable for deposit in MI, and no retailer is required to accept containers from products they do not sell. In addition, retailers are not required to accept more than 25 dollars per day in returnables from any one person unless they choose to do so. Taking your containers back to your local store wouldn't be an issue, but sorting, separating and returning a semi full of properly marked aluminum cans 25 bucks at a crack just isn't worth the time and trouble. Almost 35 years of experience shows this to be true.
More money is collected in deposits than is returned to consumers (this amount is called an escheat) and this money (usually a couple percent of total deposits) is split between anti-pollution/litter efforts - 75% and retailers - 25%. If there was widespread fraud the amount paid in deposits would certainly exceed that taken in, don't you think?
Your idea, and suspicions, are not far fetched. I'm sure there is fraud, particularly at Michigan's southern border, but retailers near Ohio and Indiana do not get excessive amounts of returns, and share in payouts from escheats as compensation.
The famous Seinfeld episodes, where Kramer and Newman pack a truck full of cans to take to Michigan to claim their riches, was and is funny....but it's also comedy based on a simple situation not reflected in reality.
Your second paragraph, by the way, is far, far from reality.... even beverage industy lobbyists fighting deposits can't come up with something that silly. "Probably" 50 cents per unit? Manufacturers not distributing because of a deposit law? No evidence of that happening in any bottle deposit state.
I don't think a deposit will happen in NM largely because I think the NM legislature is pretty much for sale to the highest bidder in matters such as this, and the bigwigs in beverage manufacturing and distribution will fight it tooth and nail, as they did in MI. In MI there was very strong and loud support for deposits by large and very well organized sportsman/hunting/fishing/conservation organizations, and that was what convinced the voters, not the legislature, to support deposits. I'm not sure a vote of the people in NM would result in the same outcome. Doubt it, in fact, because the industry would take to the airwaves with scare tactics like "50 cents per unit".
I spend a bit of time out on the mesas and I can say that over the last 2-3 yrs the amount of scrap metal out there has greatly decreased - thanks to the price scrap metal brings these days.
There is a far larger population base within a days drive of the Michigan border than there is in New Mexico, so why would you think importing empty cans or bottles would be worse in NM?
Thanks for bringing up these good points. Michigan has (indubitably) far more infrastructure in terms of manufacturing, recycling and reusing metals, glass, and plastic; local retailers can find willing customers for their returns.
Albuquerque is >400 miles from the nearest factory to have anything to do with Aluminum manufacture, so Aluminum brought in-state would have a large transport expense. Similarly, glass and plastic manufacturing is just not here. The transport costs to the sources of the bottles would be significant.
These counterarguments still don't outweigh the bright side of launching a deposit program. NM has a massive set of conservationists (and many of them have money). If real wages ever recover, you can expect less of a fight from the opposition.
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Your second paragraph, by the way, is far, far from reality.... even beverage industy lobbyists fighting deposits can't come up with something that silly. "Probably" 50 cents per unit? Manufacturers not distributing because of a deposit law? No evidence of that happening in any bottle deposit state.
Looks like I have a bright future as a beverage industry lobbyist then. Cool. Now I'm good at two things.
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None of this will help with morons leaving tires and dead washing machines in the desert....
Wouldn't some of that aforementioned escheat/litter prevention money go toward that purpose?
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