SACRAMENTO, CA - California, a populous state with a huge waste stream, may be about to learn that not everything parading under the banner of recycling is beneficial. Californians may soon find themselves with more awkward bins in front of their homes and increased costs.

The problem centers on bottled water. Californians drink a lot of it, especially in the southern part of the state. At many homes and offices, the water comes in large, refillable polycarbonate bottles. These can be used 50 times and then recycled under a private initiative that produces both economic and environmental benefits. Now there is a push to eliminate the refillable bottles in favor of new, five-gallon disposable containers known as "one-way bottles." This is an advantage to retailers who don't want to be bothered with returnable bottles and deposits. The consequences to California will be costly.

During the 1990s, many cities abandoned the manual collection of refuse and recyclables in favor of automated collection. Residents received wheeled carts with a capacity of 60 to 90 gallons. In cities such as Sacramento, residents must set out three large bins for trash, recyclables, and yard waste. The one-way bottle means most residents will require additional bins. Depending upon the type of collection, these additional bins will cost between $10 and $50 per household.

There are also consequences for municipal recycling programs. Because of their light weight and large volume, bottles have constituted a disproportionate cost of the collection and processing of recyclables. The five-gallon disposable bottle will push costs even higher.

In present-day recycling plants, plastics fall through screens for further treatment. The disposable five-gallon water bottle will travel across the screens and contaminate the fiber stream. The bottle will therefore require additional labor or ocular scanning technology in every recycling plant in North America. Labor costs in the average plant will increase by more than $100,000 per year, or plants will be forced to retrofit their existing systems with machinery costing $500,000 to $1,000,000 per plant. It will also take an additional 720,000 loads for recycling and trash trucks to collect and transport the new bottles.

The economic costs of the one-way bottle go even further. Bottlers would be shifting much of their packaging and disposal costs onto an already overburdened public. That would be a neat trick for an industry that extracts its product from public supplies, often at little cost. (In Maine, New Hampshire, Michigan, and Texas, legislatures are debating the claim that bottlers are stealing water for profit and depleting a precious public resource. Such charges are now appearing in California publications.) What is good for one industry is not necessarily the best public policy for California, a state that often sets trends for the nation.

This debate serves as a reminder that recycling is not a panacea. As with anything, there are costs, tradeoffs, and consequences.

K. Lloyd Billingsley is editorial director at the Pacific Research Institute. He can be reached via email at klbillingsley@pacificresearch.org.