Bowie Bans the Bottle

Let others bemoan the container-cluttered American landscape. The people of Bowie, Md., want action. As a result, the Bowie city council has recently enacted an ordinance banning the sale of nonreturnable and nondisposable containers within city limits. The first local ordinance of its kind in the U.S., the Bowie law imposes fines of up to $100 a day and sentences of up to 30 days in jail--or both--on anyone found guilty of selling "illegal" containers after April 1, 1971.

Apart from its local merchants, who are not exactly ecstatic Bowie (pop. 40,000) is genuinely convinced that the fever of Earth Day can burn all year. Some people in the container industry agree. Reynolds Metals Co., for example, is offering $200 a ton for discarded aluminum cans in the Los Angeles and Miami areas, and the Glass Container Manufacturers Institute, which represents most of the country's major glassmakers, has launched a nationwide campaign to buy back discarded bottles at a penny a pound.

Even without such good vibrations, Bowie's bottle banners are hopeful that their scheme will work. Says a former city councilman, Sherman Funk: "Let it be known in the future that in the city of Bowie, the city of man came to grips with its environment."

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