Wednesday, May 30 marked the beginning of the Bigger Better Bottle Bill PR road show.

• On Long Island, DEC Commissioner Pete Grannis endorsed the Bigger Better Bottle Bill.
  
• In the Hudson Valley, Agriculture Commissioner Pat Hooker did the same.
• In Albany, activists launched the first of their weekly "vigils" in West Capitol Park with the big inflatable bottle (12-1:30).

We are delighted to see such an excellent effort put forth by the administration for this bill and hope that the public outreach efforts succeed in getting more New Yorkers to rally around the Bigger Better Bottle Bill.

Also on tap:

Please join the Rensselaer County Residents for a Bigger Better Bottle Bill this Saturday June 2nd at 11 AM for a litter survey. Folks will meet at 11 AM at the Tamarac Plaza on Rt. 2 in Brunswick (between Rt. 351 and Rt. 278, which comes south off of Rt. 7). It is across the street from Tamarac High School. The litter survey will drive the roads of Brunwick to pick up discarded bottles and cans. We will see how many are covered by the bottle bill now versus how many would be covered by the expanded bottle bill. They expect the survey to take about an hour and a half. For more information or directions, call Steve Breyman at Citizens; Environmental Coalition (462-5527 xt 14) or Mark Dunlea at Hunger Action Network (434-7371 xt 1# or 283-6512)

DEC and Friends of the Great Swamp (FROGS) CO-SPONSOR GREAT SWAMP CLEAN-UP TO COMMEMORATE THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BOTTLE BILL

New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and the Friends of the Great Swamp (FROGS) will celebrate the success of the past 25 years of the Bottle Bill by conducting a clean-up of the Great Swamp on Saturday, June 2, 2007 at 10:00 a.m. at the Patterson Recreation Center, 65 Front Street, Patterson, NY - Putnam County.

To kick off the clean-up, DEC's Region 3 Director, Willie Janeway will be joined by Jim Utter, President of FROGS, Town of Patterson Supervisor Michael Griffin and other government and environmental and conservation groups from the area to speak about the impact of 25 years of the Bottle Bill and the additional environmental benefits of the Bigger Better Bottle Bill.

The clean-up celebrates the 25th anniversary of the Bottle Bill, which was signed on June 15, 1982. Volunteers will be collecting small trash, bottles and debris along portions of Route 22 and other local roadways surrounding the Great Swamp. The returnable recyclables will be collected separately from trash and non-returnable items.