“It exemplified why the wheels are coming off recycling,” she said.



她说:“这说明了为什么回收利用的废料越来越少。”



In January, some members of the group — made up of business leaders, government officials and environmentalists — were briefed on a $4 million investment that the Coca-Cola Foundation was making in the city. Coca-Cola, the group learned, had chosen Atlanta to showcase its “World Without Waste” campaign, which centered on increasing collection rates of bottles and cans.



今年1月，这个由商界领袖、政府官员和环保人士组成的团体的一些成员听取了可口可乐基金会在该市投资400万美元的简报。该组织了解到，可口可乐选择亚特兰大作为其“世界远离浪费”(World Without Waste)运动的展示地，该运动的核心是提高瓶罐的回收率。



The company, through a group called the Recycling Partnership, would pay for city workers to comb through residential recycling bins and leave behind “inspirational scorecards” marking which items could be recycled and which belonged in the trash. The program had been tested successfully on a smaller scale.



该公司将通过一个名为“回收伙伴”的组织，为城市工作人员支付费用，让他们仔细检查居民的回收箱，并留下“鼓励卡”，标明哪些物品可以回收，哪些属于垃圾。该项目已在较小范围内已成功测试。



Someone in the meeting floated another idea: Why not explore the idea of a bottle bill in Georgia?



会议上有人提出了另一个想法:为什么不探索一下在佐治亚州使用“瓶罐法案”的可行性呢?



The proposal was quickly shot down. Several members of the group expressed concern that pushing for a bottle bill could jeopardize the funding from Coca-Cola. The message, Ms. Seydel recalled, was “you better let that dog lie.” The discussion at the meeting grew heated. Ms. Seydel and others argued that bottle bills were proven methods to increase collection rates of used plastic.



这项提议很快被否决了。该组织的几名成员表示了各自的忧虑，他们担心推动瓶罐法案可能会危及可口可乐的资金供应。赛德尔回忆说，这些人的意思就是“你最好待着别添乱。”会上的讨论越来越激烈。塞德尔女士和其他一些人认为，瓶罐法案已被证明是提高塑料回收率的行之有效的方法。



Kanika Greenlee, the city’s environmental programs director, had come prepared with a statement from Coca-Cola, making clear its opposition to deposits. Bottle bills were inconvenient and costly, the company said.



该市环境项目主管卡尼卡·格林利(Kanika Greenlee)准备了一份可口可乐的声明，明确表示反对这项法案。它们表示，瓶罐法案既不方便又昂贵。



Ms. Greenlee, who through a spokeswoman declined to comment, holds several roles related to recycling in Atlanta. She works in the city’s public works department, but she also serves on the national board of directors of Keep America Beautiful alongside executives from Coca-Cola, Dr Pepper, Pepsi and the American Chemistry Council, a trade group for chemical and plastics companies.



格林李通过一位发言人拒绝置评，她在亚特兰大担任几个与回收有关的职位。她在该市的公共工程部工作，也在“保住美国的美丽”的全国理事会任职，与她一起任职的还有可口可乐、胡椒博士、百事可乐和美国化学理事会——一个化学和塑料品公司的行业协会——的高管。



A spokesman for Keep America Beautiful, which the packaging industry helped create in 1953 to combat litter, said the group had a “neutral” position on bottle bills and that “all options at this point need to be on the table” to improve recycling.



“保住美国的美丽”是1953年在包装行业的帮助下创建的，旨在抵制乱扔垃圾。其发言人表示，该组织在瓶罐法案上持“中立”立场，“在这一点上，所有的改善都需要被提上议程”，以改善回收利用。



In a statement, Coca-Cola said company policy positions were independent of its foundation’s donations, adding that the grant had already been awarded when the Atlanta Recycles meeting took place.



可口可乐在一份声明中表示，公司的政策立场独立于其基金会的捐款，并补充称，亚特兰大回收利用大会召开时，那笔400万美元的投资已经得到批准。



“We are open to exploring a variety of strategies to achieve our goal of recovering and recycling the equivalent of a bottle or can for every one we sell by 2030,” Coca-Cola said, adding that it found curbside recycling was “one of the most effective and convenient recycling solutions for consumers.”



“我们愿意尝试一切可能的策略来达到我们的目标,这个目标就是到2030年时，我们能回收或重复利用每一个售出的瓶子或罐子，”可口可乐还补充道，“路边回收是一种对消费者来说最有效和方便的回收方案。”



‘A Superior Strategy’

“卓越的战略”



Empty bottles have vexed the beverage industry for more than a century. They are “the monstrous evil that saps the life from an otherwise prosperous trade,” The National Bottlers Gazette wrote in 1882.



一个多世纪以来，空瓶子一直困扰着饮料业。1882年，《国家瓶装商公报》写道，它们是“可怕的恶魔，夺走了原本繁荣的瓶装行业的生命”。



Back then, beverage companies desperately wanted their bottles back because the glass containers were so expensive to make. The companies even conducted raids on homes to retrieve their used containers from housewives who used them to store ketchup and medicine.



当时，饮料公司迫切地想回收他们的瓶子，因为玻璃容器的制作成本太高。这些公司甚至对家庭进行突击检查，从家庭主妇那里回收使用过的容器，这些家庭主妇用这些容器储存番茄酱和药品。



By the 1980s, however, mass-produced plastic made bottles inexpensive — and people rarely reused them. They often ended up being tossed on the side of the road, and the beverage companies simply made more of them.



然而，到了20世纪80年代，大量生产的塑料使瓶子变得便宜——人们很少重复使用它们。它们经常被扔到路边，饮料公司也只是简单地生产更多塑料瓶以供使用。



Bottle bills were passed partly in an effort to reduce this kind of litter. But states like Tennessee, New Jersey and Washington settled on an alternative. In Tennessee, beverage companies agreed to pay a small tax in order to fund litter pickup efforts, education programs and handouts promoting recycling.



瓶罐法案被通过的部分原因是为了减少这种垃圾。但田纳西州、新泽西州和华盛顿州等州选择了另一种方案。在田纳西州，饮料公司同意缴纳小额税款，以资助垃圾清理工作、教育项目和促进回收利用的传单。



There was another bonus. In many parts of the state, inmates would perform the daily litter cleanup, keeping costs low and rewarding good behavior in the county jails. The tax revenue pays for salaries and other expenses of county sheriffs overseeing the litter crews, like lunch from McDonald’s for the inmates.



还有一项补贴。在该州的许多地方，囚犯们会每天清理垃圾，以降低运营成本，并会因其善行得到监狱的奖励。这些税收用于支付监督垃圾处理人员的县治安官的工资和其他开支，比如为囚犯提供麦当劳午餐。



“It makes the time go easier,” one inmate, Miko Coleman, 29, said as he picked up trash along a quiet country road this spring.



今年春天，29岁的囚犯米科·科尔曼(Miko Coleman)在一条安静的乡间小路上捡垃圾时说，“这让时间过得更快了。”



But the money — and the cleanup crews — would go away if Tennessee enacted a bottle bill, according to a provision in the law. That has made it difficult for bottle bills to gain traction politically.



但是根据法律规定，如果田纳西州通过了瓶罐法案，这笔钱——以及清理人员——将不再存在。这使得瓶罐法案在政治上难获支持。



“I have to hand it to the industry, they have a superior strategy,” said Marge Davis, a writer and conservationist, who has been proposing a bottle bill in Tennessee nearly every year since 2004.



“我不得不把它交给这个行业，他们有一个更好的策略，”作家兼环保主义者玛吉·戴维斯(Marge Davis)说，她自从2004年起一直在支持瓶罐法案在田纳西州的施行。



Ms. Davis says the litter pickup helps to beautify roads, but does not get at the core issue of recycling more bottles and cans. And even though her bottle bill proposal would find a new funding source for roadside cleanups, she has had a hard time convincing lawmakers.



戴维斯女士说，垃圾清理有助于美化道路，但并没有影响到核心问题——回收更多瓶罐。尽管她的瓶罐法案提案将为道路清理找到新的资金来源，她还是很难说服立法者。



At times, Ms. Davis’ efforts faced another opponent — the group Keep Tennessee Beautiful. Like the work crews, Keep Tennessee Beautiful derives much of its funding from the tax money.



有时，戴维斯女士的努力面临着另一个对手——“保住田纳西的美丽”这个组织。和工作人员一样，这个组织的大部分资金来自税收。



Keep Tennessee Beautiful’s organizational values, according to its website, include “personal responsibility” and “policy based on fact.”



根据其网站，“保住田纳西的美丽”的组织价值观包括“个人责任”和“基于现实的政策”。



For several years, the group circulated research and spoke out against bottle bills. Their argument, presented in a two-page white paper in 2002, mirrored the beverage industry’s position closely. Stopping litter and encouraging recycling are best done through education, it said, not through 5-cent deposits.



几年来，该组织一直在进行研究，并公开反对瓶罐法案。2002年，他们在一份两页的白皮书中提出了自己的观点，这与饮料业的立场非常相似。停止乱扔垃圾和鼓励回收利用最好的方法是通过教育，而不是通过5美分的押金。



“Funds should go for prevention education,” the white paper states. “Teach the child and retrain the adult.”



“资金应该用于教育大家预防问题的发生，”白皮书说。“首先教育孩子，再是成人。”



Missy Marshall, who has been executive director of Keep Tennessee Beautiful since 2013, said her group does not currently have an official position on deposits, but she worries about upending funding for a system that is successfully reducing litter.



自2013年以来一直担任该组织执行干事的米西·马歇尔(Missy Marshall)表示，她所在的组织目前还没有关于这项法案的官方立场，但她担心这个法案的成功施行会导致目前已明显改善垃圾问题的系统的资金稳定被打乱。



“What we don’t think is a positive step is to undo what we are doing,” she said.



“我们并不认为否定当前的做法是一个明智的决定，”她说。



Lobbying Power Unleashed

游说力量显现



One of the industry’s chief criticisms of bottle bills is that they deprive municipal recycling programs of valuable scrap material like aluminum cans. Selling this material helps offset the cost of processing items that are less valuable.



该行业对瓶罐法案的主要批评之一是这些法案剥夺了市政府回收铝罐等有价值废料的计划。而出售这种材料有助于抵消加工价值较低的物品的成本。



This argument has gained particular credence among environmental groups and municipalities after China put strict limits on the amount of plastic scraps that it imports from the United States. The policy shift in China led to a glut of used plastic and paper around the country, forcing some communities to burn or bury material they cannot offload.



在中国对从美国进口的塑料废料数量进行严格限制之后，环保团体和市政当局对这一观点更加信任了。中国的政策转变导致美国的塑料和纸张供过于求，迫使一些组织焚烧或掩埋他们无法处理的材料。



In Washington State, Sen. Christine Rolfes thought she had come up with a comprehensive solution. This winter, Ms. Rolfes introduced a bill that she said was intended to hold all plastic packaging manufacturers responsible for the recycling of not just plastic soda and water bottles, but also harder-to-process plastics like takeout containers and packaging wrap.



在华盛顿州，参议员克莉丝汀·罗尔夫斯(Christine Rolfes)认为她已经发现了一个全面的解决方案。今年冬天，罗尔夫提出了一项法案，她说，该法案旨在要求所有塑料包装制造商不仅要回收塑料苏打水瓶和普通水瓶，还要回收更难处理的塑料制品，比如饭盒和包装袋。



Representatives of roughly 20 companies and trade groups testified against the bill, including a group called the American Institute for Packaging and the Environment, whose members, according to its website, include ExxonMobil’s chemical division and Pepsico.



大约20家公司和贸易组织的代表一致反对该法案，其中包括一个名为美国包装与环境协会的组织。该组织的网站显示，其成员包括埃克森美孚(ExxonMobil)的化学部门和百事可乐。



“They pretty much represented the entire economy,” Ms. Rolfes said of the bill’s many opponents. “It was insidious.”



“他们在很大程度上代表了整个经济，”罗尔夫斯在谈到该法案的众多反对者时说。“这是阴险的。”



After several revisions, the current version of the bill no longer holds plastic manufacturers responsible for recycling.



经过几次修订，目前版本的法案不再要求塑料制造商负责回收。



The bill, which has been signed into law, now directs a state agency to study different approaches to recycling plastic packaging. The report is due by October 2020.



该法案已经签署成为法律。根据该法案的要求，一家州立机构正在研究比较回收塑料垃圾的不同方案，该研究报告将于2020年10月提交。