1. Erin And Gwen
The average pop bottle to most people seems very insignificant, but we rarely think of the adverse effects that they have on our life. The vast majority of pop bottle are made of a plastic material called Polyethylene Terephthalate, or PET. Out of the 50 states in the United States, only 10 of these states requires a bottle deposit. It is in strong opinion that the other 40 states enact a bottle deposit law of some kind for many reasons. These reasons include, the increase to recycling, cleaner environment, increase income of the poor, and the increase of jobs. Recycling today is becoming more and more important. As said by the University of Alaska Fairbanks, "Recycling is an important part of a sustainable lifestyle and in preserving the resources used by society." Recycling of plastics has become important because of the fact that plastics are made from petroleum, which is a non-renewable resource. With a bottle deposit, the amount of plastic we recycled has gone up quite a bit. Michigan, which currently has a 10 cent bottle deposit, recycles about 98 percent of all its plastic bottles. The other states that have a 5 cent bottle deposit, recycle about 85 percent of their bottles. All other states, which do not have a bottle deposit return, only recycles 20 percent of their bottles. From this we can see how huge of an effect that bottle deposits have on the aspect of recycling. .
Another huge benefit to a bottle deposit law would be a cleaner environment. Today more than ever we see pop bottles and other such plastic containers everywhere. If a bottle deposit law were to take effect, we would see a dramatic decrease of plastic based litter. The average plastic bottle has a decomposition rate of 450 years. This means that the bottle will stay around for 450 years before it finally decomposes. Plastic bottle litter ranks first to second in some litter studies. If we were to make a bottle deposit mandatory it would give people an incentive to clean up our environment and keep it clean for future generations.