Environment: 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...