Educating Drinkers

MORE THAN A FEW students over the years have turned to drink to help them through their college days and nights. If a bill currently pending in the state legislature becomes law, every time you buy a bottle of beer, you could be contributing toward putting somebody through school.

This state of affairs arose in recent weeks as the state senate formulated a bill to amend the recently-passed bottle law, which requires a deposit on all purchases of bottles and cans for beer and soft drinks. The deposits are refunded when bottles are returned. But the senate wondered what would happen if consumers didn't return their bottles.

Some officials have estimated that beverage distributors may be left with as much as $25 million per year from deposits on bottles and cans that are not returned. What is to be done with these surplus funds?

First, the bottlers wanted to keep the money. These people who had opposed the bottle law from its conception claimed they would use unredeemed deposits to reduce costs to consumers. It seems naive though to think that the extra funds will cut the price of a bottle of Coke.

The senate decided that the bottlers have no right to the money. Since there isn't any way to track down consumers who don't get their refunds, the legislators reasoned, the money is clearly abandoned property--or escheatage--and should be turned over to the state.

A senate battle ensued this week over who should get the funds. Senator Chester G. Atkins (D-Concord) won the fight when the senate passed his amendment, which would appropriate the escheatage money for the state scholarship and loan program.

Opponents of the amendment, including lobbyists for beverage interests, claim the measures would create incentive for students to litter and throw away bottles and cans rather than return them, in order to contribute to the scholarship fund. One lobbyist proposed that bumper stickers be printed reading "Smash that bottle, crush that can. Go to college as cheap as you can." These critics would seem to overlook the plight of the average college student, whose most immediate concern is the nickle in his pocket--not some fund far down the road.

The bottle bill in Massachusetts is long overdue. If executed effectively, it will help to clean up the streets and the parks of the state. If it is implemented perfectly, all bottles and cans will be returned for their deposits. But obviously some consumers--out of apathy or laziness--will neglect to collect their money, leaving millions in spare cash for somebody's coffers.

In these bleak economic times, it seems good common sense--and seasonal cheer--to allocate such monies for a scholarship fund which is badly in need of replenishing. The students of Massachusetts ought to raise high their returnable beer bottles to Atkins and his colleagues who supported the amendment, and hope that Governor King will join in the toast.