CHICAGO -- The specter of thousands and thousands of empty plastic bottles piling up in landfills and elsewhere has slowly gained traction among environmentalists in an effort to reduce the amount of bottled water being sold in the United States.
A recent article in Time Magazine notes that fewer than a quarter of plastic bottles are recycled, leaving 2 billion pounds of plastic a year to clog landfills. And now one major city is trying to do something about it by suggesting [image-nocss] slapping a tax of 10 to 25 cents on the cost of bottled water.
Chicago could cash in on the bonanza of bottled-water sales---and help clean up the environment---by slapping the tax on the cost of every bottle, a city alderman said Monday, according to a report in the Sun-Times.
At a time when Chicagoans are bracing for post-election tax increases to close a $217 million budget gap, Alderman George Cardenas said he can think of no better or more lucrative idea to add to the menu than a bottled water tax.
"People enjoy jogging or driving with a bottle of water. There's a cost associated with this behavior. You have to pay for it," said Cardenas, according to the report.
Cardenas noted that there's a nearly $40 million shortfall in the city's water and sewer funds, in part because of a decline in water usage. "How is this possible when we have a water system that's won honors? It's because bottled water has become a $15 billion industry that's growing at a rate of 20% to 30% a year," he said.
Wendy Abrams, a spokeswoman for the city's Office of Budget and Management, said the mayor's budget team will "work with aldermen on any new idea aimed at generating new revenue for the city." But raising taxes remains a "last resort," she said.
Many U.S. cities have cut off municipal purchases of bottled water. But Joseph Doss, president of the International Bottled Water Association, said he knows of no other city that has tried to tax bottled water.
"Bottled water is a safe, healthy, convenient beverage that consumers find refreshing. Any action that would discourage consumers from drinking this healthy beverage is a bad idea and not in the public interest," he told the newspaper.
Doss said the bottled vs. tap argument doesn't hold water because 75% of bottled water consumers drink both.
And bottled-water companies are attempting to defuse the landfill argument. They're using much lighter-weight plastics in their containers and have reduced the amount of plastic resin in those bottles by 40% over the past five years, he said.
Noting that plastic petroleum containers make up only one-third of 1% of the total U.S. waste stream, he said, "Any effort to reduce the environmental impact of packaging must focus on all consumer goods and not just target bottled water or any one industry."
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