Enacting the Bottle Deposit: The People Prevail

Until the late 1950s, most beverage containers were made from glass and redeemable for deposits under a system voluntarily maintained by bottlers. But the new "no-deposit, no-return" beer bottle quickly displaced the redeemables. In 1962, seeking to thwart a competitor, the Stroh Brewery Company of Detroit briefly succeeded in winning approval of a state rule banning the no-deposit beer bottle, but the glass industry quickly overturned it by promising the siting of a new plant (and jobs) close to Lansing. Stroh's soon brought its own nonreturnable container onto the market. By the mid-1960s nonreturnable bottles and cans smothered roadsides across the state, prompting complaints from residents and tourists alike. The Michigan United Conservation Clubs (MUCC) estimated that containers accounted for nearly 80 per cent of roadside litter. In 1975, State Rep. Lynn Jondahl of East Lansing introduced the latest in a series of deposit bills.

The Capitol swarmed with enemies of the Jondahl bill. Container manufacturers, beverage wholesalers and retailers, and many labor unions - particularly critical to Democratic legislators like Jondahl - opposed the measure. James W. Deitrich, President of a United Steelworkers local based in Benton Harbor, protested to Jondahl that his bill "would decimate the entire throw-away beverage container industry in Michigan." Retailers disliked the measure because it would require them to make space for returned cans and bottles and consume staff time counting and sorting the containers. Wholesalers objected to the burden of collecting and transporting redeemed bottles and cans, and said the bill would drive up beer and soda prices.

Supporters of the deposit were creative. To dramatize the litter problem, the Michigan Student Environmental Confederation had sent labels to organizations across the state, urging them to stick the labels on cans and send them to the governor's office. Stacks of the cans accumulated in the halls outside the office. Students piled them on the Capitol law, attracting news photographers and cameramen.

But the lobby against the bill did a "superb" job, remembered Representative Thomas Anderson, who tried to usher similar legislation through the Legislature several times before Jondahl did. "They beat us at every turn," he said, "once by scheduling a free golf outing for the entire legislature on a day when I had scheduled a committee vote, once by changing votes in my committee I was sure I had, and once by killing the bill on the House floor…using local lobbyists and planeloads of visiting industry specialists. They scheduled committee member dinners, took a few of us to their headquarters cities to show us ideas they were working on to 'obviate the need for a bottle bill, etc."

Killed by the combined opposition in 1974, the bill was reintroduced by Jondahl in 1975. A series of hearings produced amendments to the bill that Jondahl and others thought would yield the necessary committee support. On November 12, the Consumers Committee took up the measure and was expected to send it to the full House. Instead, in a switch that surprised Jondahl and Bill Rustem, an aide to Governor Milliken who had lobbied for the measure, Republican Representative James Smith of Grand Blanc voted to send House Bill 4296 to the Appropriations Committee. The move was considered a death knell for the legislation. It "may never again see the light of day," Jondahl said. Rustem, who speculated that lobbyists for wholesalers or retailers had "gotten to" Smith, said MUCC Executive Director Tom Washington "blew up." Washington vowed to launch a petition drive to place the measure on the ballot in November 1976. "We would prefer to have this question acted upon by the Legislature," he said, "but since that body has chosen to ignore the issue, we have no alternative to seek a popular vote on Representative Jondahl's bill."

Washington's move was bold; it would be no easy feat to get the question on the ballot. Under the 1963 Michigan Constitution, citizens could put an issue before the entire electorate only by collecting at least 212,000 signatures of registered voters. The Legislature could then either approve the measure or send it to the ballot. Organizing a petition drive was a mammoth undertaking. No conservation measure had ever reached the Michigan ballot this way. But Washington had built the MUCC organization to sufficient strength to run and fund a grass roots campaign and referendum.

The other indispensable ingredient in the campaign was Governor William Milliken, who had first declared his support for a ban on throwaway containers in 1971. Milliken provided the first petition signature to place the issue on the ballot, and instructed his state agencies to do what they could to support the referendum.

Michigan's news media generally supported the measure, adding to the sense that it was a basic reform. "We still believe outlawing the throwaway container will help to solve one of Michigan's worst problems - the miles of litter that clutter our freeway system," editorialized WWJ-TV in Detroit. "So, when you see one of the MUCC petitions, and you're a registered voter, we urge you to sign it. That way, you'll help put the question on the November ballot, and you'll have the chance to 'vote-away' litter." The Detroit Free Press, a consistent champion of environmental quality, pointed out that a state Public Service Commission analysis showed the ban would generate 4,000 new jobs and $28 million in taxable income. The newspaper added the measure would "cut out a lot of litter and also save on energy required to produce the steady supply of throwaway bottles and cans."

Volunteers from the Michigan and Detroit Audubon Societies, Federated Garden Clubs and other organizations worked daily at MUCC's office distributing information and petitions. Milliken loaned his natural resources advisor, Rustem, to MUCC to coordinate the collection of signatures. Members of MUCC's local sportsman's clubs clamored for the petitions, as did eager volunteers from across the state. Despite a late start, the petition drive's gigantic coalition succeeded in placing the question of a throwaway ban on the ballot. In just two months, the MUCC-headed coalition rounded up 400,000 signatures.

But placing the issue before voters was only the first step. Washington and other supporters knew they would face a dizzying campaign of opposition from industry and labor organizations. Joining under the banner of the Committee Against Forced Deposits, opponents waged a fierce advertising campaign talking about the job losses that would result from the throwaway ban, and promoting alternatives they said would reduce litter without the burden of deposits. But supporters of the ballot question capitalized on the "fairness doctrine," a Federal Communications Commission regulation that obliged broadcasters to present both sides of a public question, to receive free airtime to rebut some of the ads. Grand Rapids attorney Fred Steketee wrote the broadcasters to remind them of the requirement, helping offset the industry advantage.

Jondahl, who toured the state speaking in favor of the proposal, said he feared a defeat as the election approached. "I became frightened that the margin would be seriously eroded and that we could lose it…the level of debate was glib, and not based on the research." But the voters ignored the advertising campaign. On November 2, 1976 they approved Proposal A, the beer and soda throwaway container ban, by a margin of 63.8 percent to 36.2 percent, or over 900,000 votes. Two years later, the ban took effect. In 1982, the state Department of Natural Resources found the ban had helped reduce litter 40 per cent, saved 15,000 tons of aluminum and 65,000 tons of glass annually, and resulted in only 130 consumer complaints about dirty returned bottles and cans - sanitation being another argument used by opponents. Just as importantly, surveys showed lopsided majorities of Michigan residents continued to support the ban two decades after it took effect.