In a historic vote, the Senate, for...

SACRAMENTO — In a historic vote, the Senate, for the first time in 20 years, voted overwhelming approval Thursday for compromise anti-litter legislation that would require a refundable 1-cent deposit on beer and soft drink containers.

Twelve Republicans joined 21 Democrats in returning the heavily lobbied--and admittedly incomplete--bill to the Assembly.

About 15 such bills have been introduced over the years starting in 1965, but each has fallen victim to a long-running battle between environmentalists and the beverage industry.

The current version of the legislation, drafted by Assemblyman Burt Margolin (D-Los Angeles), embodies a compromise between the warring factions.

Although supporters of the measure hailed the Senate vote as a significant step forward, they noted that several major issues are still undecided and must be resolved before the bill reaches Gov. George Deukmejian.

Margolin said chief among those issues is what kind of requirement, if any, will be imposed upon retailers to receive empty bottles and cans.

Grocery store owners have raised strong opposition to similar bills, arguing that the storage and handling of empty containers puts a a financial burden on them.

So, under the current legislation, empties would be returned not to grocery stores but to “recycling centers.” The latter could be anything from a state-of-the-art reverse vending machine that receives rather than dispenses bottles and cans, to a parking lot dumpster.

The problem is that if recycling centers are not available, the bill would require retailers to provide them. The solution is tricky for lawmakers, retailers and environmentalists.

Margolin had wanted the bill to require the centers to be within the “immediate vicinity” of stores. But retailers obtained a Senate amendment that replaced Margolin’s “immediate vicinity” language with the words “trade area,” which has a broader and vaguer meaning.

“It’s a difficult issue,” Margolin said. “We don’t want to impose an unfair mandate on retailers, but at the same time we want the centers to be convenient to consumers. The whole purpose of the bill is to get them to return their bottles and cans and not throw them away, so it has to be convenient.”

Many senators said their show of support was conditioned on an understanding that a final compromise version of the bill would be fashioned by Senate and Assembly negotiators.

“I still don’t know what’s in the bill,” complained Sen. Milton Marks (D-San Francisco), although he voted for the measure.

Sen. Becky Morgan (R-Los Altos Hills), floor manager of the bill, argued that although the measure is imperfect, it now represents the best that could be worked out, given the intense interest by competing factions.

“We are only recycling about 2% or 3% of our plastic and only about 10% of our glass at this time,” she said, arguing that something must be done to clean up the problem of waste resulting from disposable soft drink and beer containers.

She and Margolin had originally sought a relatively simple bill that would have required a 5-cent deposit on glass, aluminum and plastic containers.

The argument for such legislation was that a nickel would provide enough incentive for people to either save their own bottles and cans or go out to parks, beaches and other public places and scavenge for other people’s throwaways.

However, the beverage industry complained that 5 cents was too much. Beer and soft drink bottlers predicted a drop-off in sales if the price of a six-pack was raised 30 cents. Retailers argued over the storage and handling of empties. Labor unions feared a loss of jobs.

Morgan told reporters after the vote that the current bill and the penny deposit are recognition that a compromise is better than nothing at all. Supporters of the nickel deposit put an initiative on the ballot in 1982, but it lost after an expensive and hard-fought campaign.

“It’s a foot in the door. The alternative is to go to the voters again and spend a lot of money on something that may not win,” she said.

Actually, the refundable deposit could be more than 1 cent per container. All deposits would go into a special fund that would be administered by a now-unspecified state agency, and 70% of the unclaimed money would be returned to consumers and recyclers in the form of expanded deposit refunds.

It was estimated that the penny deposit would yield $120 million a year statewide. If the program did not produce the desired result of a 65% rate of return by the end of 1989, the refundable deposit would be boosted to 2 cents per container, and then to 3 cents in 1992 if the rate of return was still insufficient.