2. What is the bottle tax supposed to be funding?
The bottle tax is supposed to be funding

The fee is used to fund that portion of system operations costs (collection, transportation and marketing) not covered by material revenues (i.e., the 'salvage value' of the containers) and unredeemed deposits. Beverage container deposit laws, or bottle bills, are designed to reduce litter and capture bottles, cans, and other containers for recycling. Ten states and Guam have a deposit-refund system for beverage containers. They paid that deposit to the manufacturer when the container was bought and they're only passing it along to you. The store keeps none of the deposit, or the recycling fee. ... They pay the deposit and recycling fee to Encorp once the container is shipped.