It’s enough to make anyone have to cross their legs.

A 20-foot inflatable Snapple-shaped bottle made a stop in Syracuse on Thursday in order to promote awareness of updates to New York State’s bottle-refunding bill.

‘It’s touring around the state to build support and let officials know the benefits of expanding recycling and seeing unclaimed deposits back to the state,’ said Sean Vormwald, project manager of Syracuse University’s chapter of the New York Public Interest Research Group.

At 11 a.m. April 17, about 25 people from various groups, including those from the Syracuse community and campus, gathered outside a state office building at 333 E. Washington St. to support updating New York’s bottle bill.

‘Right now, only carbonated beverage containers can be recycled,’ Vormwald said.

The proposed update to New York’s current bottle bill would extend the ability to get money back from recycling to non-carbonated beverage containers.

‘Non-carbonated containers are not being recycled at the rate that soda is being recycled because there’s no incentive,’ Vormwald said.

Recently, the demand for non-carbonated beverages has increased to account for 22 percent of the bottled beverage market.

This new trend created the need for an update of 1982’s bottle bill, Vormwald said.

The second issue of the campaign involves having unclaimed bottle deposits returned to New York.

An estimated $135 million would be returned to the state if the bill passes with no extra cost. During the demonstration, four representatives from various interest groups spoke and took the media’s questions. Other groups that attended the rally include the Sierra Club, the New York State Bottle and Can Redemption Association, the Onondaga County Resource Recovery Agency and students from SU, the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, SUNY-Cortland and SUNY-Oswego.

‘NYPIRG was influential in passing the original bill back in [1982],’ said Geri Weinstein, a senior history, education and political science major and NYPIRG member.

‘It’s important that we’re working on this one now.’

Thursday’s rally was part of the 12-day ‘Message in a Bottle’ tour. It ends in Albany on April 28, Earth Day Lobby Day, after covering most of New York State.

At each stop on the tour, the giant bottle is collecting postcards addressed to both Speaker of the Assembly Sheldon Silver and New York State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno in support of the Better Bottle Bill.

‘Our goal is to get 12,000 postcards overall,’ Vormwald said. At that point in the rally, 600 signed postcards were in the bottle, many of which were endorsed by SU students.

Overall, the rally was deemed successful by those who attended.

‘It’s another step towards progress,’ said Andrea Russell, a junior interior design major. ‘And it will continue to be successful until it passes.’

Published on April 21, 2003 at 12:00 pm