N.Y. Retailers Face Added Expense of Reverse Vending Installations

CHRISTINA VEIDERS

ALBANY, N.Y. — Several members of the Food Industry Alliance of New York State face extra costs in complying with a provision of the expanded state bottle bill, passed last year, requiring additional reverse vending installations be added to a store location, depending upon store square footage. Deadline to comply with the law is March 1.

Among those affected are Wegmans Food Markets, Rochester, and Tops Markets, Buffalo, said Michael Rosen, the alliance's senior vice president. Rosen said the change in the law that requires a dealer or retailer who operates 10 or more stores in New York to install and maintain a certain number of reverse vending machines was originally aimed at big-box chains that were not redeeming bottles.

The new law requires retailers that have stores in the 40,000- to 60,000-square-foot range to install three RVMs; stores in the 60,000- to 85,000-square-foot range to install four RVMs; and stores more than 85,000 square feet to install eight RVMs. The previous bottle bill law had no such requirements.

It was not known how many more reverse vending machinesWegmans or Tops would need to add to comply with the law, but such installations can run into the thousands of dollars.

Rosen noted the law precludes other technology that may be less costly for retailers and locks retailers into using RVMs for recycling bottles. He said FIANY has raised its concerns about this provision of the law with New York state legislators.

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