Why is this important? In a word: LITTER!

As a founder of our local personal environmental stewardship organization the 'Friends of the Frisco' (Greenlee County), and as a long time highway cleanup volunteer, I have seen first hand that most of the trash cluttering our beautiful state are alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverage containers. I believe we can better manage this huge problem by assigning a value to each item. When every beverage bottle and can sold in Arizona requires a twenty five cent deposit from the purchaser, we will start to see a change in behaviors and attitudes. We will see less litter and we will probably be helping out the 'roadside aluminum miners' too. Point of purchase deposits on beverage items should be complimented with easy access redemption facilities at every store front where they are sold. This is existing technology that needs to be implemented statewide. The current recycling arrangement is not helping to mitigate the littering problem in Arizona and we need to demand a retooling of the industry through legislation that models some of the other states who are successfully engaged in a deposit/return program.