NEHA April 2024 Journal of Environmental Health

ADVANCEMENT OF THE SCIENCE

FIGURE 1

Geochart of Permissible Level for Reuse and Multiuse Containers by State

W A

N D

O R

I D

W I

N Y

S D

W Y

I A

MA CT

N E

N V

O H

V T N J D E

I N

I L

U T

W V

R I

V A

K S

K Y

N C

D C

T N

A Z

O K

N M

A R

S C

Permis s ib le

3 3

G A

A L

N on- Permis s ib le S emi- Permis s ib le

T X

A K

F L

V I

G U

H I

A S

Results of Measuring Changes to Code for Determining Permissible Level The purpose of the previous section was to describe the shape of the data collected. The purpose of this section is to sum- marize inferences and extrapolations of those changes as they relate to the original research questions that drove determination of the sample. Only three states (Alaska, Louisiana, and South Dakota) were deter- mined to prohibit consumers from refilling their own thermoses. With the exception of Washington, all other states appeared to prohibit a consumer from using a personal reusable container for refillable items. Ver- mont was the only state to explicitly pro- hibit a consumer from using a container brought from home for leftovers. Alaska, Louisiana, Maryland, and South Dakota were the only states that appeared to implic- itly or explicitly prohibit employees from refilling establishment-provided drinking cups on behalf of consumers.

In general, with the exception of New York and Oregon, state codes based on fed- eral codes from 2009 or earlier appeared to prohibit establishments from providing refill- able containers to consumers that could be returned for cleaning. Furthermore, only seven states appeared to diverge from the broad allowances of the federal code to per- mit third-party cleaning of refillable items (insofar as those third parties were consid- ered to be food processing plants). Score modifiers were applied in an eort to quan- tify changes and omissions made by states to their adopted federal codes in the hopes of predicting inspector decisions about those codes. The score modifiers typically only served to modify states that bordered on semi-permissible and only shifted one state (Georgia) between categories. Ultimately, the majority of states were con- sidered to be permissible by measure of the majority of our research questions (Table 4, Figure 1). Following score adjustment based

on changes to key regulations, seven states were determined to be non-permissible in regard to reuse and multiuse containers: Alaska, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Mary- land, South Dakota, and Vermont. Another 10 states and the District of Columbia were considered to exist in a gray area labeled as semi-permissible. The remaining 33 states were considered to be permissible, evalu- ated as positively responding to most of our research questions or having made changes that directly addressed reuse in a positive light. Of note, Georgia was considered semi-permis- sible and, following score adjustment, was labeled as non-permissible. Oregon and New York were the only states with codes based on pre-2013 federal codes to be considered fully permissible, and Georgia was the only state with a code based on a post-2013 federal code to be considered fully non-permissible. These findings highlight another interest- ing trend: state codes that are still based on federal codes from 2009 or earlier were more

Volume 86 • Number 8