A federal judge has blocked New York officials from collecting five-cent deposits on bottles of water until next April.

The delay gives bottling companies, which opposed the law, renewed opportunity to lobby for changes. It may also cost the state an estimated $115 million in unclaimed deposits on bottles for water and other beverages that it was to start collecting this year.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Griesa’s order prevents New York from enforcing any amendments to the so-called “Bottle Bill” to give bottlers and others time to comply with the changes signed into law by Gov. David Paterson.

Environmentalists criticized the delay, saying stores and redemption centers won’t be getting a needed boost from a 2 to 3.5 cents per return handling fee, and many small centers will likely shut down.

“More than two billion water bottles will end up in the waste stream rather than recycled,” Laura Haight, chief environmental associate for the New York Public Interest Research Group, said Monday.

Nickel deposits already are collected on bottles of carbonated beverages, wine coolers and beer sold in New York.

Last week, Griesa temporarily stopped the law from taking effect Monday. He concluded the requirement for New York-specific bar coding on labels to help ensure the bottles are sold and redeemed in New York violates the U.S. Constitution’s commerce clause.

“What we think needs to happen right now is for the bill to be fixed to include all bottles, and to make sure unclaimed deposit revenue is being funneled back to the municipalities to support community-based recycling,” said Trish Wexler, spokeswoman for Nestle Waters North America, which filed the lawsuit along with the International Bottled Water Association and Polar Corp.

The water bottlers said the New York-specific code would drive up business costs, and they criticized an exclusion of bottled water that contains sugar.

John Pierce, spokesman for a coalition of beverage makers, distributors and grocers that opposed the deposit expansion, said Tuesday, “We’re hopeful we’ll be able to use this time to work to find a solution that makes real environmental progress as well as not harming New York’s consumers and businesses.”

The group said the law would raise prices; it backs better municipal recycling.

Bills to amend the law or postpone some provisions have been introduced.

“It’s a little bit late for them to be suggesting rewriting the entire law,” Haight said Tuesday. “They lost that battle.”

The law would allow the state to begin collecting 80 percent of unclaimed deposits on all beverages that require deposits, including water. Bottlers have been keeping that money. The state budget assumed $115 million in revenue for the year, including $29 million from water, during the 2009-10 fiscal year.

Pierce said he believed bottlers were keeping unclaimed deposits, but there was concern about holding them in escrow until the matter is settled.

Source: AP