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A coalition of bottled water companies—including Nestle Waters, which owns Poland Spring, and Keeper Springs, a smaller company owned by environmental advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—filed a lawsuit yesterday to challenge a new state law that would require bottled water companies to charge a 5 cent deposit fee. The complaint argues that the law violates the Constitution’s equal protection clause because it exempts drinks with sugar added, such as competitors like Glacéau, makers of Vitamin Water. Lawyers also say the deposit would violate the Constitution’s interstate commerce protections the law because it could be interpreted as prohibiting companies from selling the New York-labeled bottles in other states.
In speaking to the Times, Kennedy, who works with Riverkeeper, argued that "the sugar lobby, and its indentured servants in the Legislature," created the law to go after bottled water. "There is no rational basis for penalizing water. It means that if I add a little sugar to my water, I don’t have to pay my redemption fee." Lawmakers estimate the deposit law would bring in some $115 million in unclaimed deposits annually, and Riverkeeper happens to be a big supporter for expanding the deposit law to bottled water, which seems a little awkward for Kennedy.
Lawyers for the International Bottled Water Association argue that the planned June 1st start date, which involves imprinting a New York State bar code on bottles, is "physically impossible." (Governor Paterson's office declined to comment, but the Times reports the deadline may be moved back.) As for Nestlé Waters, their CEO is really worried about the law's impact on the community, because it "hurts community-based recycling efforts by removing a critical revenue source from curbside recycling." And the company's spokesman also says the sports drink exemption is very suspicious: "I think the biggest untold story is who was in the room when that was dreamed up."
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Vitamin Water should be illegal. Period.
Easy solution: deposit on all plastic beverage bottles. Then the sugared water bottlers can get pissed at the water bottlers.
Anybody who buys bottled water is a sucker.
That would work.
When they rolled the 5 cent deposit in years ago, I wondered why they didn't apply it to all bottles.
"Keeper Springs, a smaller company owned by environmental advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr."
Recycling wise: Wouldn't is be better if they used glass bottles instead of plastic?
Glass is much heavier than plastic, which means much more fuel is needed to haul it around.
Easiest solution. Stop taxing everything and cut the waste and patronage from government.
yeah, that's the easiest solution. the easiest solution to type out on your keyboard. now try to put that bell on the kitty.
Agreed, but...sometimes I really wish I were the genius that came up with the idea to sell the flavored water to those suckers.
sugared drinks cost more to recycle and store. they cause more of a mess and are more likely to attract bugs and vermin. also there are something like 3x as many bottles of water sold than non-carbonated beverages. that was the logic behind exempting non-carbonated sugar drinks.
i think they SHOULD also have a deposit but it's a compromise based seeks to reduce waste with a minimal cost. there's definitely a reason to impose this DEPOSIT (not fee) despite the moaning from the kennedy's.
There is no way they have a chance in hell at succeeding. This lawsuit is worth less than the paper it's written on. Last time I checked, water bottlers weren't a protected class.
You don't need to be a protected class to allege violations of the dormant commerce clause, since the law is unconstitutional on its face. It is appalling that the legislature would pass this law with a carve out for sugar-added water, especially at a time when we're trying to address sugary beverages.
"The complaint argues that the law violates the Constitution’s equal protection clause because it exempts drinks with sugar added, such as competitors like Glacéau, makers of Vitamin Water."
You do have to be a member of a protected class to win on an equal protect claim.
No, the state would have to make a rational basis showing. And the lawsuit is worth quite a bit more than the paper it's written on, since the judge granted the preliminary injunction yesterday. Go back to law school.
Hilarious that the "environmental advocate" would be against bottle deposits, considering the program began with carbonated beverages in part to decrease bottle and can litter. One might think it would make sense for the same idea to apply to water bottles. But I'm not the environmental advocate, so who knows?
People's ethics tend to evaporate easily, especially when those people are wealthy and their money is concerned.
Let's give the man a bridge, in honor of his fierce and unwavering devotion to the environment.
So RFK Jr., an environmental advocate, owns a bottled water company?
That's more hypocritical than Bristol Palin preaching abstinence.
Hey RFK Jr., WTF?!?!?!?!
Well as long as people recycle, it's not so bad.
I think he's an environmentalist as far as it concerns his own expanse of property along the Hudson. The rest of the environment can suck it.
Can someone tell me why only particular bottled drinks (carbonated) are subject to a deposit?
I'm being sincere. It seems to me the contents of the bottle are inconsequential if a deposit on the container is beneficial.
when the first bottle bill was passed (twentysomething years ago) the bottled water and juice market barely existed. the problems were beer and soda cans for the most part. the only non-carbonated beverages sold in large quantities at the time were milk and bulk juices and they didnt pose the same environmental problems as they were rarely a single serving size.
the reason why this new legislation only includes water is because 1) bottles that had sugar water in them are more likely to cause a mess (bugs, mice, etc) and thus cost more to recycle and, more imporatntly 2) water bottles currently account for over 70% of the waste stream.
basically there are more discarded water bottles than others and it's cheaper to recycle them.
this lawsuit is laughable. but the june 1st deadline is a little absurd. that just needs to be pushed back somewhere between 6 and 12 months.
they ALREADY make separate UPCs for the deposit and non-deposit states.
Also, can we please stop referring to this as a fee. either a redemption fee or a depsoit fee? it is NOT a fee. it is not a tax. it's a deposit. you can get the nickel back if you recycle the bottle when you're finished using it.
There should be a ¢5 deposit on crack vials as well...
The plastic in bottles that contain sugared drinks is lower quality than soda or water bottles--they usually have an extra layer to protect the liquid from spoiling, which makes it harder to recycle into anything but things that can use low-grade plastic, like carpets, whereas soda and water bottles are pure PET, so they can be re-used in a variety of ways. If they were to put a deposit on all the sugared drink bottles, those would mix in with the better bottles, and become harder to turn into anything worthwhile.
Seems like an obvious solution would be to mandate standardization of packaging requirements so that only fully recyclable materials are used.
OK - Gov Patterson has earned his pay.
He has skillfully selected targeted businesses to shoulder the burden of NY's budget gap, put NY retailers at an interstate disadvantage, put select beverage distributors at a competitive disadvantage and he did this while in "support" of the enviorment. Well at least he supported the enviormentalist, well; supported him high enough to get his hand in his wallet, since only $500,000 will be committed to the enviorment out of the $115,000,000 the state will get from beverage distributors. But it's not about the money right, it's about recycling those bottles into something new, that's what is really important, right. Oh wait, some of the "cheap" plastic bottles will be mixed with the quality PET making it almost worthless, so we can also credit this bill with destroying the post-consumer PET industry (at least in NY). And I guess that would be another NY business put at a competitive disadvantage. He's just racking them up.
In short - you destroyed a delicatly balanced system that has worked for over 25 years. For a follow-up you now want to TAX sugar drink because they make people "obese". Odd, you are the first to make the connection in over 100 years of soda sales.