Water bottlers can stop sweating over New York state's new bottle recycling bill, at least for now. Today, a federal judge temporarily stopped the law from going into effect. It would've required all water bottles to carry a New York-specific bar code in order to collect a 5-cent deposit by June 1, a deadline bottlers didn't think they could meet. So the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA) filed a lawsuit calling it unconstitutional.Nestle Waters North America and Polar Beverages joined the suit against the Bigger Better Bottle Bill, too. As you can imagine, they didn't want to risk having all of their bottled water pulled from New York store shelves--we previously reported on this real possibility of what could have happened if this bill went through as planned.
Lawmakers and Governor Paterson have offered amendments, but an agreement hasn't been made yet, so the lawsuit continues. For now, it looks like water bottlers are getting a break.
Photo: by Muffet from Flickr used under Creative Commons Copyright.
Leave a comment