Pass the bottle — and pay up

A Las Vegas lawmaker wants to literally nickel and dime the consumers and retailers of the state of Nevada -- throwing reams of paperwork and wasted menial labor at a nonexistent problem.

This past week, Democratic Assemblyman James Ohrenschall was pushing for a bill that would require a 5-cent deposit on the containers for beer and soft drinks. He told the Assembly Committee on Natural Resources, Agriculture and Mining that Assembly Bill 427 would help cut down on trash tossed along highways and would provide an incentive to make citizens recycle the containers -- whether they are made of glass, metal or plastic.

Under the law, every beverage container would have to be labeled by someone to indicate the container is reusable, the refund value of the container and that it is originally being sold in Nevada. The labeling alone is an unknown level of expense that would add to the price of the product before considering the nickel deposit.

Retailers would have to accept returned containers, no matter where they were originally purchased, and pay out the refund. Those transactions will tie up store clerks for countless unproductive hours every week, creating an inflationary expense that will be added to the cost of other products.

Never mind the sanitary issues of handling sticky, smelly containers that must be stored somewhere on premises, attracting the usual assortment of disease-carrying insects and rodents.

Of course, the ulterior motive behind this bill may be less about recycling than creating another cash stream for our legislators to spend. You see, any unrefunded container deposit funds would not be retained by store owners -- they would be remitted to the state.

Mr. Ohrenschall says California averages around $120 million in unclaimed deposits a year.

Someone should bottle up this bill and toss it in the nearest landfill. If not, Gov. Brian Sandoval should veto it for violating his no-new-taxes pledge.