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Nearly Two Dozen National Parks Ban Sales Of Disposable Plastic Water Bottles

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More and more parks are installing water-filling stations, such as this one at Arches National Park/Kurt Repanshek

Nearly two dozen units of the National Park System have instituted bans against the sale of disposable water bottles, a move proponents say will greatly reduce trash.

For most parks, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, disposable plastic water bottles represent the biggest source of trash that parks must pay to haul away, averaging nearly one-third of all solid waste in parks surveyed.

"Ending sales of plastic bottles in national parks has gotten off to a slow start due to the influence of Coca-Cola, whose Dasani bottled water is one of the top sellers, on top National Park Service officials," PEER maintains. "In 2010, just days before a long-planned plastic bottle ban at Grand Canyon National Park was to take effect, NPS Director Jon Jarvis blocked it at the company's behest. Even more significantly, NPS abandoned its plan to end disposable water product sales in 75 percent of all visitor facilities by 2016."

However, after the matter gained public attention the Park Service director relented, though he issued a directive that required parks to extensively study the impacts of instituting such a ban before they would be permitted to do so. 

The analysis required elaborate assessments that included a review of the amount of waste that could be eliminated from the park; the costs of installing and maintaining water filling stations for visitors; the resulting impact on concessionaire and cooperative association revenues, and consultation with the Park Service's Public Health Office.

The analysis also dictated the consideration of "contractual implications" to concessionaires, the cost and availability of BPA-free reusable containers, and signage so visitors could find water filling stations.

Perhaps due to the controversy, only a handful of national parks adopted bans under the new policy in 2012, its first full year. In 2013, records obtained by PEER indicate that no park that sought a bottle sale ban was turned down and another six parks went bottle-free:

* Colorado National Monument;
* In Texas, Pecos and San Antonio Missions national historic parks;
* In North Carolina, the Outer Banks Group; and
* In Utah, Natural Bridges and Hovenweep national monuments.

Beyond the 23 parks in 10 states that already do not sell plastic water bottles, California'™s Golden Gate National Recreational Area, the most heavily visited national park, and Florida'™s Biscayne Bay National Park, are both installing water 'œfilling stations' to provide free water to visitors. In addition, Washington'€™s Mount Rainier National Park indicates it is working on a ban, according to PEER.

"€œFrom desert to ocean parks, from remote wilderness to urban enclaves, the drive to remove the blanket of discarded plastic bottles appears to be slowly regaining momentum,"€ said PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting that NPS replaced its goal of a ban on bottle sales at 75 percent of facilities with a vaguer target that parks cut solid waste streams by half by 2016, the year of the NPS Centennial.

"National Parks will be hard pressed to meet the goal of cutting their expensive and un-ecological solid waste load by half without addressing plastic bottles --€“ the single largest source of trash in most parks," said Mr. Ruch.

Word that nearly two dozen parks had banned the sale of the plastic bottle was praised by Corporate Accountability International, which long has lobbied for the ban.

"€œWe applaud the more than 20 national parks that have ended the sale of bottled water on park lands, taking a critical step towards reducing waste and standing up as leaders within the park service by protecting water as a public good," said Erin Diaz, director of the Think Outside the Bottle campaign at the organization.

'With the support of our members, allies, and hundreds of small businesses, organizations and park partners, Corporate Accountability International is calling on the the National Park Service to end the sale of bottled water."

Comments

ec -

During this discussion on several similar stories on the Traveler, some have pointed out the how much plastic bottles contribute to waste pickup and disposal costs in parks, and as I've said before, even small reductions in costs are important. To follow along with your line of thought, perhaps you'd like to offer some data on how much paper adds to waste pickup and disposal costs in parks, as compared to plastic.

A pretty good percentage of paper used and disposed of in parks probably comes from office operations, and we'd hope that is being handled through a recycling program.

I certainly agree that more needs to be done to reduce the amount of all waste going to landfills - including paper -  and digital vs. printed communications is helping in that regard.

At the consumer level, there's an easy and cost effective alternative to plastic water bottles. For some purposes in today's world, there isn't an easy and cost effective alternative to paper - and that includes a paper product that is widely used by virtually everyone in the country. I'd not aware of a satisfactory alternative to that product for Americans, and that paper product is flushed away after use ... so it doesn't go to the landfill :-)


much plastic bottles contribute to waste pickup and disposal costs in parks, and as I've said before, even small reductions in costs are important.

And I provided a simple solution for that. Charge a deposit. Unreturned bottles forfeit their deposit and pay for the clean-up.

But then, that wouldn't serve the agenda.


Bottle deposit laws have been shouted down or defeat has been purchased in most state legislatures by the packaging lobbies. You ignored that fact as you push your agenda of whatever it is today.


Lee, the NPS doesn't need legislative action to implement a deposit rule in the park. If they can outright ban the sale of plastic bottles they surely could institute a deposit on bottles that are sold.

You have more excuses than Carter has pills.


I agree that a deposit (or some kind of surcharge) on plastic bottles would be a good idea, especially if the revenue went to some related purpose, such as litter pickup costs for those that aren't returned.

However, there are potential issues. As Lee suggests, the deposit would likely be challenged as a "tax," which would require some kind of legislative approval. The term "deposit" implies that the buyer can return the bottle and get a refund of some kind. On a park level, that's pretty impractical, without a way to confirm the bottle was purchased from that same seller. And ... in these days of computerized cash registers, there's the issue of programming the system for another type of transaction, and keeping track of the income and outgo for bottle deposits.

The world isn't a simple as during my childhood, where a deposit on glass soda pop bottles was universal, and kids could  collect empty bottles and return them to any store, anywhere, to claim the deposit.

There are lots of estimates of the number of plastic water bottles used - one source claims 60 million per day  in the U. S. alone. Governments at various levels count heavily on tax revenue from products like tobacco, so an easy way to help balance the budget would be a tax of say 50 cents on every plastic water bottle sold. My old-type calculator couldn't compute that many zeros, but I believe that could raise almost $11 billion a year :-)


ec, you have more dodges and twists than Union Pacific has railroad ties. Jim's comment provides an excellent explanation.

Additionally, a few many years ago, Connecticut (I think it was) tried taxing purchases made in convenience stores and earmarked proceeds for litter cleanup. The reasoning was that much of the state's litter came from things purchased in those stores.

Guess what happened as soon as that "grossly unfair tax" hit the courts? That is one of the reasons cited in Utah, at least, for several defeats of bottle deposit laws.

(And, yes, ec, I agree that it was an unfair tax. It should have been levied against all stores selling disposable containers of any kind and not just convenience shops.)


Jim,

How do the 11 states prevent bottles from the other 39 from coming in? Easy, they have a label identifying them as being from that state. And somehow, when the parks can charge fees willy nilly without legislative approval, I doubt seriously they would be prevented from implementing a bottle deposit.

You and Lee can come up with all the excuses you want but a bottle deposit would be a far more acceptable, practical and effective practice.


EC, any idea how much it would cost for the bottling companies to put some sort of labeling on bottles to identify which state they came from? And if you could somehow convince the bottlers to make such labels, what's to prevent them from being torn off?

Years ago, during a college job, I worked at a bottling line for Lysol. We put identifying labeling on each bottle with a marker system. Each shift we'd change the mark. Looking back, I can't imagine having to change that mark for shipments to specific states. And how many would you do for each state? Fewer for Wyoming than California, but how many?

And if you could figure that out, you'd have to segregate the shipments so Wyoming's bottles went to the Cowboy State and not, for instance, the Empire State. So you'd also have increased costs in shipping and handling to cope with.

State-specific labeling certainly seems impractical.

Frankly, might be easiest, and best, to make it a community service project for the local Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, etc. Once a month bring a dumpster to the park and send the scouts out to collect bottles.


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