HOUSTON—A Houston group is Lobbying Texas lawmakers to pass what’s called a bottle bill.
Under the bill, Texans would pay a dime deposit when purchasing a bottled drink, then turn the used bottles in for a refund.
The Buffalo Bayou Partnership is backing the bill. They’re convinced it would help clean up Buffalo Bayou where hundreds of tons of beverage containers are picked up each year.
Booms trap the debris so workers can suck it up with giant floating vacuum cleaners.
The partnership has five boats running five days a week, from the turning basin along Buffalo Bayou to Shepherd Drive.
Containers that are missed wind up in Galveston Bay and ultimately the Gulf.
A bottle bill could cut the amount of trash dramatically.
"It will reduce our load by about 50 percent," predicted Mike Garver with the Buffalo Bayou Partnership.
Garver said the bottle bill is needed if Texans are serious about the environment.
"The bottle bill will reduce our work on the stream here, and not just this stream but every stream in Texas that goes through a major city," Garver said.
Backers of the bottle bill will take their message to Texas lawmakers in 2011.
Only eleven states have bottle refund bills.
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