Food For Thought Regarding Glass
 

I rode a popular route yesterday-Del Dios Highway from Escondido to Del Mar in CA. I rode through a couple of the frequent "glass fields" we all see on our road rides. I wound up having to pull to the side of the road for minor mechanical issue and noticed a number of glass bottles in the brush that were intact enough to see what they had contained. The majority about a half dozen were beer bottles, two were wine bottles, and one was a quart sized vodka.

It was sobering (no pun intended)

Another case of unintended consequences. The 'open container' statutes have undoubtedly played a part in reducing the number of drivers impaired by the recent consumption of alcohol. But they also provide motivation to those who still choose to drink while driving to get rid of the evidence as quickly as possible so it's not still in the vehicle if they happen to get pulled over. So we end up with more glass shards to cut our tires along the road.

I often look at the debris in the ditches as I ride. On the way out of town, they are full of empty beer and booze containers. On the way in, they have either general garbage, likely from a dump run gone awry, or tobacco product wrapping.

Since we have no traffic law enforcement, and barely any law enforcement patrols of any sort, there is no risk of being pulled over and cited for open container violations. Thus, I don't think the alcohol containers on the roadside have anything to do with that law. I think we're just talking about narcissistic drug abusers and their dirty habits. Too many of them appear to be youngsters, which is sad.

People have been chucking stuff out of cars as long as there were bottles and takeaway containers, and car windows. In some areas I can predict how long it takes to drink shakes by the radius of the circle of highest concentration of discarded containers.

One example of laws that did work, and where the unexpected consequences were all good is the bottle deposit laws. These days with curbside recycling many argue that they're a nuisance, and since bottles are all crushed rather than refilled there's no need to return empties to the point of purchase. This might be true for what's brought home and drunk out of the fridge, but not for what's consumed outdoors.

I have no illusions that 5 cents is enough motivation for people not to litter, but here's where the unexpected benefit kicks in. All over the NY metro area there are self-employed independent recyclers, aka street people. They wander all over collecting bottles and cans and bring them back for the deposit. People hate them when bring in trash bags full of bottles, many of which they've pulled from street trash bins. But they also pick countless containers off the street every day.

Since the deposit bills ware written back when glass bottles were refilled, they exempted liquor bottles because of various liquor laws and because of the logistics, wherein those weren't delivered in high volume by trucks that could take back empties. These days, bottle deposits are handled by vending machines which crush the bottles and dispense a receipt. The only issue is accounting which is handled by bar codes on the bottles.

That means there's no longer a good reason to exempt liquor bottles, but 5 cents isn't going to do the trick. IMO the bottle deposit laws should be extended to wine and liquor bottles, and considering the cost of the product and fragility of the empties, the deposit needs to be in the range of a dollar or so. No great hardship to anybody would be involved and it would help keep streets clean.

Very good points. I recall when I was a kid in the sixties, soft drinks were all in glass bottles, delivered to stores in reusable wooden crates, which were used to send the empties back tot he bottler for refill. The small 10-12 oz bottles were $0.02-0.03 each. The quarts were $0.05. I, and several other kids were given "allowance" in the form of empty bottles. Now, fifty years later, the price is the same-not corrected for inflation. Your point about economic incentive to recycle is well met.

The original point remains that people drink and drive. Some even drink while driving. The section of road I spoke about in first post was pretty isolated, and not easily accessible by foot for the typical "recycling engineer". Also the age of the refuse seemed to have a pretty large range. Another factor is that very few soft drinks are sold in glass bottles anymore. I did see a bit of plastic, but still a disproportionately large amount of glass. Some one tossing back a beer on the way to the beach is more likely to want to dispose of the evidence than someone drinking a Pepsi who is more likely to save it for the recycle bin.

How many beverages come in glass bottles versus aluminum or plastic? Almost all beverages that people buy in glass are alcoholic. There's a bias there.

Moving to a 10 cent deposit REALLY cleaned things up in Michigan - I was a kid when they enacted it, and a group I was in did road cleanup as a community service. Before the deposit law, we would fill up more than two full size pickups with stake sides (extended sides so that the bed was now a cage 6 feet high) in our area, I think it was about 2 or 3 miles. EVERY YEAR.

The year after, we fit all the bottles in about 4 garbage bags. I'd guess that we went from 10,000 bottles and cans to maybe 300.

Almost all that I see on the side of the road is beer cans, from cheap beer. No doubt it's the open container law causing that - 10 cents isn't enough to make people risk getting caught with an open container.

Same here in Iowa with its 5¢ deposit on beer, soda pop and alcoholic beverages in bottles or cans. They eventually disappear off the highway due to scavenging. The favorite beverages of the litterers appear to be Busch Lite and Mtn. Dew. The deposit law does not cover bottled water, iced tea, and juice containers and those thrown out the windows stay on the highway until there is an organized litter pickup which may take years.

Don't know how a previous poster determined that too many of the litterers are narcissistic drug abusing youngsters with dirty habits.

Probably a combination of assumptions and stereotyping. After all this is the A&S forum.

bcarfree's comment was prefaced with "I think" Its my opinion that he is entitled to his opinion on who litters. But I disagree, there are many drunken middle age pigs here in Eugene, as well as youg drunken pigs.

Count me out, I passed through Eugene once about 30 years ago, so I doubt anything I might have chucked is still around.

FB somehow you don't seem to be the type to drive around heaving anything out of your windows.

No, that's what the unused back seat is for.

That is definitely the thought of an old timer; those young louts know how a back seat is best used and don't want any discarded cans or bottles interfering with the action.

Nobody uses the foot well for that. Plenty of capacity before it becomes an issue.

BTW- Back when I was in college, we had this large poster that said.

Confucius Say "If you drink, don't park. One wants to remember when he has fun".

It was not my intention to draw (i.e. "jump to") any conclusions. I made an observation based on personal experience, and posted here to incite comment. I fully realize that the observations I made about road side litter are a pretty weak basis for estimating the extent of the drunk driving problem. It did serve as a reminder that the problem exists. I guess what got me really thinking about this was a couple of high profile incidents here in Southern California. One of those was probably more a case of distraction involving law enforcement using digital media, the other allegedly involved some king of chemical impairment, not necessarily alcohol. I suspect distraction may have been a factor in the second case. I have never used meth, as the suspect was alleged to be under the influence of, but do not believe it causes the same type of motor impairment that alcohol does. I welcome comments by those who may have more knowledge of this.

My main motive was to solicit thoughtful responses, like those of FBinNY, and others.

In Massachusetts, the bottle law also does not cover water, iced tea, juice, etc. bottles. An extension to these bottle types is introduced each year in the legislature, and each year it is squished by a handful of powerful reps. I have no idea why they are so dead-set against it. Makes no sense to me. :(

It's the Bambi effect. Lawmakers don't want to be accused of raising the price of "good" foods such as milk, juice and the like. I don't have a problem exempting milk in quarts or larger, but feel the law should be extended to all bottled drinks in sizes that people would take and drink outside. Here in NY milk is exempt (dairy state) as is juice, but water, iced tea, and most "juice drinks" have deposits. For water, I don't know if the deposit applied to the gallons, but I know it applies to the smaller sizes.

Actually,the 5c bag tax here in DC seriously cut back on the number of bags being used. Before it went into effect,many people were complaining in the local blogosphere about 'the high cost';they were losing it over a nickle. Just look at how many items cost $X.99 rather than the next whole dollar. Money can be a huge motivating factor.

Around where I live there are a lot of dry counties. I can always tell where the county lines are by the amount and types of broken liquor bottles. People road trip to the next state or county and get their supplies, then can't wait to drink a half pint of old crow on the way home. They toss it around the line. Its wild, a half mile or so of glass.

As to meth users, no they don't seem drunk, and I don't know about motor skills. But the general insanity and poor judgment of a tweaker should never be underestimated.

As evidenced in this case (a hit and run BTW) by the suspect apprehended while trying to dispose of evidence.

Perhaps some PSAs to remind kids that if you are gong to chuck your empties to get them fully off the roadway.

It would be nice if they just stopped using glass for all the beverages.

I can see trying to sell this concept to officials. "We know you're going to litter. Don't just drop it, give it a good toss. Wimpy tossers face stiff fines"