Environmental burden could break chains - retail discount house chains - Column

Discount Store News, August 3, 1992 by Ken Rankin

Any way you slice it, the cost of cleaning up the environment figures to get pretty steep over the next decade or so.

Discounters and other retailers will almost certainly be expected to shoulder their share of these costs--and the way things look now, they may have to pay even more than their share.

Most discounters are likely to get a taste of these added expenses the next time they have their store air conditioning or refrigeration equipment serviced.

New federal rules which took effect last month require equipment maintenance personnel to avoid discharging ozone-depleting cholorfluorocarbons (CFCs) into the atmosphere.

As a result, service firms have been forced to invest in costly new equipment and training programs to recapture CFCs. These expenses will be passed on to retailers and other businesses through higher maintenance charges.

Meanwhile back here in Washington, Congress is closing in on far more sweeping environmental legislation, that may drive up merchandise and operating costs for retailers well into the 21st century.

The bill attracting the most concern right now seeks to reauthorize federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) by imposing a complex and ambitious set of product recycling standards.

One version of the pending bill would require that glass, aluminum as well as other materials that are used to make beverage containers meet a nationwide recovery rate of between 40% and 65%.

Product packages unable to meet these strict nationwide standards either would have to contain at least 25% recycled materials, be reusable at least five times, or require 15% to 20% less raw material than similar packaging in use a year earlier.

The price of complying with these requirements will be high, and those costs will ultimately trickle down on retailers and consumers like acid rain.

Of even deeper concern to many discount industry leaders is the failure of pending RCRA legislation to prevent states from heaping on even more rigorous packaging mandates of their own.

Warning that the federal bill "clears the way for states to impose additional new regulations," IMRA called RCRA "an open invitation for states to proceed with bottle deposit bills."

If some members of Congress have their way, states won't even have to enact bottle bills. Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), for one, is maneuvering to amend RCRA to include a nationwide 10-cent beverage container deposit mandate.

What's more, bottles and cans may be just for openers. Other federal lawmakers have proposed legislation requiring retailers to accept returns of such environmentally problematic products as dead batteries and used motor oil.

Determining the appropriate environmental standards is only half of the job. The other half is making sure that no group is forced to disproportionately bear the burdens imposed by those standards.