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Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

175 points by sethbannon 8y ago

Shivetya 8y ago
So my question is, how much of the material they are taking is getting to recyclers? None of the articles linked within the original give a number. They do highlight that curbside pickup of recyclables is pretty much a dead end but that has been suspected for a long time. when the public is rewarded for returning a usable product, usable in the sense it is worth more to recyclers, they apparently do it quite often. the reward is instant or tangible whereas curb side is mostly forget about it which in turns leads to it not being valuable down stream. being instant furthers participation. it is a good lesson to take to other states looking on how to implement a winning system. so curbside, sounds good, feels good, doesn't really amount to something. personal drop off with instant judgment and payout works better
- mediaman 8y ago
  I'm not sure on what portion goes to recyclers, but I have been to the plant that processes all these return bottles, and I suspect that a fairly high percent is going through that facility. It's a 24/7 operation with sophisticated grinding, washing, and sorting equipment, producing clean flake for use by bottle manufacturers. The owners say demand has been very strong for the finished product.
  - Symbiote 8y ago
    In Denmark, the system says the collected bottles and cans are of good enough quality to be re-made into food containers: > The advantage of this system is that the material can continue to have adequate quality to be used again for food. Strict health regulations cover the aluminium, plastic and glass we drink from. > This is why aluminium from used beer cans may solely be used for new beer cans if it has not been mixed with other aluminium items such as empty paint cans. Similarly, glass bottles cannot be recycled into new bottles containing soft drinks if the glass has been mixed with waste glass from light bulbs, for example. > When we send plastic, glass and aluminium from bottles and cans for processing, the material goes exclusively to facilities and companies that are approved to manufacture food packaging. We inspect regularly to ensure that the requirements are met. https://www.danskretursystem.dk/en/use-again-and-again/closed-ressource-cycle/ https://www.danskretursystem.dk/en/use-again-and-again/close... The statistics for recycling etc are here, but my Danish isn't good enough to skim through and find the relevant figures: https://www.danskretursystem.dk/presse/#/documents/aarsrapport-2017-81050 https://www.danskretursystem.dk/presse/#/documents/aarsrappo...
sigfubar 8y ago
> A row of sparkling clean reverse vending machines greet customers Yeah, these won't stay "sparkling clean" for long. I used to make an effort to redeem bottle deposits: I'd pull up in my truck and attempt to unload everything I've accumulated over the preceding couple of weeks. Eventually I got tired of jostling into position in front of the machine, arguing with the homeless, and getting into fights over who gets to go first. The sorts of people who redeem bottle deposits in NYC do a very good job at scaring away regular folks who might want to do the same.
- fipple 8y ago
  You could have probably auctioned off your bag to the crowd there for close to true value.
  - thinelvis 8y ago
    Maybe once in the past year have I managed to have someone buy my cans and bottles for basically nothing. Probably 80 percent of the people redeeming where I go are homeless, so it's no mystery to me why they're homeless.
- timdellinger 8y ago
  Also, there's no incentive to keep them clean - people will come in no matter what condition the place is in. They often end up smelling like stale beer and corn syrup.
- dawnerd 8y ago
  That’s assuming they even work. Best bet is to go to a Costco, they at least keep it mostly clean and functional. Although you then have to stand in the returns line to get your money or argue with a cashier that they have to redeem the slip.
blakesterz 8y ago
Funny, only 10 states have bottle bills: California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Oregon and Hawaii. Delaware had one but dropped it. I thought they were way more popular for some reason. Redemption rates are all above 50% I guess that's not too bad. https://fox61.com/2018/05/17/connecticut-trails-other-states-in-bottle-redemption-rates/ https://fox61.com/2018/05/17/connecticut-trails-other-states...
- keeganjw 8y ago
  Plus Vermont
- myWindoonn 8y ago
  If one thinks about it, it's not especially surprising that the bottle bills are both uncommon and popular. In order to have a bottle bill, a state needs to tax every bottle, convince grocers to help collect bottles, and operate recycling processors. Thus, the state's population needs to be liberal/blue/neoliberal enough on tax policy, have a strong bread basket with lots of farmers, and care for the environment. Why do bottle bills tend to get high amounts of participation once enacted? Environmentalism is more popular than folks think. The bigger reason, though, might be that a culture of recycling has become popular. It can be easy to place a bottle into a container on the street, or for a restaurant to collect a bottle on behalf of its patrons, and those unredeemed bottles contribute to the redemption rate. If the deposit is large enough, then a market for scavenging bottles can form, incentivizing redemption at scale, but this is usually considered a bad thing.
  - vidarh 8y ago
    They don't really need to convince grocers. The way it works in Norway is that there is an excise tax on bottles and other drink containers. Every recyclable container you recycle gives you a credit against the excise tax. There is a national return scheme that retailers can opt into to handle the recycling, but in theory they could operate their own. The return scheme in effect costs less than the excise tax. Shops can decide not to participate, but in that case they sell drinks at the same price as everyone else, but has higher costs per bottle sold. (EDIT: Shops could decide not to participate; apparently that's changed at some point in recent years; it's now compulsory) That was enough to convinces pretty much every corner store, gas station and supermarket in the country to redeem bottles. Especially because they can do so for store credit, and so it helps drive footfall of people who will tend to spend the money immediately. The hard sell is getting people to accept it as necessary to get the legal framework in place.
elektor 8y ago
Growing up in California, I assumed the bottle deposit system was a federal thing. Moving to North Carolina and seeing people causally throw away glass bottles into the trash was definitely a cultural shock for me. Kudos to Oregon for doing this.
- warmwaffles 8y ago
  Head to the midwest. No one wants to run a recycling operation. You'll see people throw away plastics, metals, and glass all the time. Recycle bins are hard to find when you don't live in a city.
  - jgroszko 8y ago
    Michigan has had a similar 10c bottle return program for decades... Was a popular fundraiser for High School clubs
  - pmiller2 8y ago
    People return bottles and cans in Michigan, though, because of the 10 cent deposit and the fact you can return them directly to any store that sells the product. Not having to go to a recycling center is huge. They are generally picked up and, presumably, recycled, by the bottler.
    - SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
      In case people aren't from Michigan and don't understand how this works... Many stores have automated scanning machines. You feel UNCRUSHED bottles and cans in, a worm drive spins them around while scanning for the barcode. If that can was sold in MI, you get a .10 credit. You just stand there feeding them in at bigger stores. Many of the grocery stores devoted a portion of their cart storage / entry to these machines. It's important to note that they are required to be uncrushed because it's a pain in the ass storing full size empties imo.
      - thoughtpalette 8y ago
claudiulodro 8y ago
As an Oregonian, I think the biggest contributor is definitely bumping the redemption value from 5 cents to 10 cents. At that price, it makes it economically viable for the homeless population to spend lots of time going around and gathering every available bottle. In my neighborhood, I even have homeless people digging through my recycling bins every few hours rummaging for bottles to cash in!
- meritt 8y ago
  As a kid, I earned a considerable amount of money (sometimes $5+ per day) riding my bike around and collecting cans and bottles during the summer. Those bought me a lot of MTG cards and layaway payments on the latest SNES game. Now I just set them alongside the recycling bin for the homeless as well. I feel like the neighborhood kids are really missing out on a lucrative opportunity.
  - matthoiland 8y ago
    You make look silly with two giant garbage bags hanging off your bike, but at the end of the day who's holding on to 20 bucks? It felt like a fortune back then, and was an honest hard days work.
    - freehunter 8y ago
      >It felt like a fortune back then That's the biggest problem for me. It was a fortune back then. My family would collect bottles all year and cash them in for a vacation. But back then it was 10c per bottle... 30 years ago. Today, it's still 10c per bottle. With inflation, that's more like 5c per bottle. Couple that with the rise in bottled water and other non-carbonated drinks that don't have deposit on them plus a lot of store brands and specialty bottles that require you to go to multiple stores to return, a whole day of collecting bottles might only net you $5. And then you have to spend another day going back and forth between Family Fare, Kroger, Meijer, Walmart, Target, and maybe even a specialty bottle store. Even for kids, a lot of times it's not worth it for just a few bucks.
    - megy 8y ago
nkurz 8y ago
There is fear that some significant portion of the recent increase in redemption rate may be due to fraud. Oregon recently increased the redemption from 5 cents to 10 cents, but the neighboring state of Washington still does not have a deposit. This creates an incentive for people to scavenge bottles in Washington and return them across the border in Oregon. Here's a recent article about the problem: "Oregon senator to introduce bill to thwart return of bottles, cans bought in Washington: She says grocery stores ‘drowning’ in out-of-state containers" https://www.columbian.com/news/2018/dec/04/oregon-senator-to-introduce-bill-to-thwart-return-of-bottles-cans-bought-in-washington/ https://www.columbian.com/news/2018/dec/04/oregon-senator-to... Has anyone seen more exact numbers that would either support or refute this?
- jwagenet 8y ago
  I wouldn’t be surprised if there is some spillover from Washington or California, but I doubt that it can be an incredibly high percentage. Frankly, I think it’s better that these cans and bottles are being recycled, fraudulently or otherwise. I’m sure it hurts the Oregon pocketbook, but according to the article, the cost of the program is only six figures. This is only a problem (cost wise) when redemption is over 100%.
  - sokoloff 8y ago
    There's no doubt some significant overhead to the program, that is likely modeled as being covered in part by the "slippage" of bottles that don't get returned. Fraudulent returns cut into that allowance, even before the redemption rate hits 100%.
    - theoh 8y ago
      How does the Oregon program "know" if a returned bottle is bona fide or fraudulent (from out of state)? I don't see how substituting units of a fungible quantity, which identical bottles seem to be, can have the consequences you suggest.
      - 8y ago
40acres 8y ago
This is great and all for the environment but as someone who lives in downtown Portland the effectiveness of this program has actually reduced "quality of life" downtown. Homelessness has been an issue here for a while, but by making it more economically viable to do bottle deposits this program has created mini hubs for the homeless to converge on. There is a large Target store downtown with bottle deposit machines, there is usually a group of homeless folks who hang out overnight waiting for the store to open to deposit their goods -- and they leave a trail of trash and needles behind. And generally make it unpleasant to shop at the store. Bottle deposit isn't really a means of addressing homelessness but it is just another factor when considering how chronic Portland's homeless issue is.
- cheunste 8y ago
  Not only is it reducing QoL in downtown...but also the surrounding area. I also work in the Pearl District and I recall my boss (who lives around 15 minutes drive from the office) stating that once in a while homeless people go to his neighborhood and pillage the trash and leaving shopping carts all over the place, which is quite unsettling. In addition, I'm glad I stay away from the target for can recycling. I think I'll stick with the Whole Paychecks down in the Pearl, even of that POS breaks way too often.
evan_ 8y ago
I'm not sure if this is a statewide thing or what but in Eugene we have a "BottleDrop" facility- it's a big warehouse with a storefront where you can take individual bottles/cans for refund, or you can bag them up in bulk and drop them off and they process them for you, and you get a credit applied to your account which you can cash out at most of the local grocery stores. I always do the bulk option, you can just drop bags off at a drive-up location. They charge a small percentage to handle it for you but it's worth it to me to have someone else handle it.
mtmail 8y ago
Similar in Germany. 2005 about 10% of bottles with deposit weren't returned, 2012 about 5%. Deposit is between 8 Euro cent (0.09 USD) and 25 Euro cent (0.28 USD). Source in German https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfandschlupf https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfandschlupf
ThomPete 8y ago
Its a great success in Denmark too
- MindTooth 8y ago
  And in Norway. High rates around 95 % on both bottles and aluminum boxes. Source: https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panteordning_for_flasker https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panteordning_for_flasker
rob-olmos 8y ago
Does anyone know if an OR store can tack on a bottle deposit fee for selling a bottle that's only marked CA CRV? I also tried to recycle it at the store's recycling machine and it says it's not accepted. Recently found this out but haven't looked into it yet.
alkonaut 8y ago
What are the rates in the other states? 90 is good but it would be more encouraging to see a smaller recent increase nationally.
JoshTriplett 8y ago
The article goes to pains to deride curbside recycling, but at the same time, curbside recycling means not wasting resources and time carrying cans to the nearest recycling center, not dealing with the awful experience that is the average recycling center, and not dealing with the stores to get the resulting small change. How much gas is used driving cans and bottles to the store? I just throw cans into the curbside recycling bin along with all the other recycling, and live with the 10 cent waste as yet another tax.
rdiddly 8y ago
I hate to be so cynical but is this a submarine article for BottleDrop? I thought of it it because (ironically) I was interested and paid a visit to their website.
jimmar 8y ago
I live in Michigan and I hate the bottle deposits. I would strongly prefer just putting bottles in recycling. Bottle deposit machines break down frequently, the machines fill up, they only take cans sold at the store you bought them from, that part of the store smells bad and is dirty and sticky, and the cans take up a non-trivial amount of space in your home.
- blahyawnblah 8y ago
  I'm a lifelong Oregonian and I agree. Taking bottles back for redemption is a pain. The places stink, there's always a line, and always one or two broken machines. Then you get a whole $10. I just stick everything in regular recycling. I would guess homeless people are the only reason it's anywhere near 90%. Everyone I know does curb side recycling.
  - dgzl 8y ago
    I think you've identified a point against your argument without realizing it. If we didn't put dollar value on recycling, the recycling wouldn't be performed at the rate it currently is. Michigan is different however. When you spend half the year surrounded by snow and freezing temps, even the idea of going outside is numbing. I was living in Michigan and Illinois this last year, and they are light-years away when it comes to interest and availability of recycling process, compared to Oregon.
    - freehunter 8y ago
      >When you spend half the year surrounded by snow and freezing temps, even the idea of going outside is numbing I've seen you make this comment twice in this thread and while you say you've lived in Michigan I think you drastically underestimate the resiliency of the majority of Michiganders. It was negative wind chill recently and now that it's back up to the mid 20s I see tons of people walking around without a coat on. The cold doesn't bother us that much.
      - dgzl 8y ago
rmason 8y ago
We're doing slightly better on the redemption rate here in Michigan though it has slipped in the past several years. Since our economy has revived I anecdotally see fewer people out collecting bottles from the side of the road. http://www.bottlebill.org/legislation/usa/michigan.htm http://www.bottlebill.org/legislation/usa/michigan.htm
- dgzl 8y ago
  I was just living in Michigan and I have to say, recycling was always an afterthought to people I met. Likewise, your state is covered in snow and freezing for half the year. This are big challenges for anyone.
  - freehunter 8y ago
    Right after the snow thaws is a great time to go collecting bottles. Plenty of people throw them out of their car and they get covered in snow, so when the snow thaws there is a ton of bottles all along the road.
    - dgzl 8y ago
      I see your point, and I remember seeing trash scattered in the spring time.
zeroname 8y ago
Has somebody bothered to estimate the cost of this whole process in terms of overall energy expenditure and waste of irreplacable human lifetime? Achieving a 90% redemption rate could still be 100% nonsense.
Zimahl 8y ago
As an Oregonian, I hate this system. It's old, archaic and now pointless. The idea behind it was to increase recycling of cans and bottles, and it did it's job. In the 70s and 80s, it was great to push that for the social good. But it's done it's job, two generations are now recycling more than ever and the coverage for curbside recycling is very high in Oregon. But the redemption rate has plummeted in the last decade! Of course it has, people don't want to have the hassle of taking cans into a location, wasting time putting each one in the machine, and getting a couple bucks back. So they were forgoing the 5 cents and just putting it in the curbside bin. News flash - the cans in the curbside bin didn't count toward redemption rates! Oregon also made it so stores didn't have to take redemptions anymore and opened redemption centers that aren't very conveniently location for most of the state. So the rate fell - and now they have increased the rate to get people to take the cans in again. Eventually the rate is going to fall AGAIN, and not because people aren't recycling the cans, they just aren't taking them in the redemption centers. The system is now worthless and just kept going because. Directly north of us, Washington doesn't have a can or bottle redemption system and there aren't cans and bottles everywhere - people just put them in the curbside bins like everything else.
- Sharlin 8y ago
  As one datapoint, in Finland the deposit system works fairly well as far as I understand. It helps that most beverage containers are now plastic or aluminum instead of heavy glass that's a bitch to drag into a store. I at least just dump glass bottles into the glass recycling bin, deposit or not. Bottles and cans with deposit that are thrown into curb-side mixed-waste bins (or just on the ground) are usually very quickly collected by people looking for extra cash (on summer weekends this can net you quite a lot!) In some places I've seen small separate can receptables attached to garbage bins that can hold a stack of cans so that it's easy for someone to come grab them without having to delve into the garbage bin proper, which I find a very good idea.
xfitm3 8y ago
My area has a problem with contaminated material collected for recycling. It's so bad there is an active marketing campaign urging users not to recycle unless they're absolutely certain the material is recyclable. I witnessed a recycling collection truck dump its entire load at the landfill, and an employee mentioned its a regular occurrence. I'm fortunate that I have great trash collection. I can dispose of up to 6 yards per week. Although my area has one of the lowest recycling rates of the country.
jdeibele 8y ago
I used to put my bottles and cans curbside. Most of the folks picking them up are, I'm sure, as honest as I am or even more so. They just need another source of income. On the other hand, we and the neighbors have had things disappear. People have prowlers in their back yards "looking for cans". So it seemed like a good idea to stop setting them out or even having them visible. What I do now: you can buy bags and bar code labels for about $.10/pair. When a bag is full of recyclables, you tie it off, put your label on it, and drop it off at one of the BottleDrop centers. There's two kinds: one where they have people working there and one where they don't (the "Express" versions). At the Express places, they truck the bags to somewhere else where they're counted. They charge $.40/bag to count them. So for $.50, or 5 bottles, I can have someone else count them instead of standing on the sticky, stinky floor to shove in bottles one at a time. It's about 8-10%, assuming you can get 50-60 bottles and cans in a bag. There are also grocery stores where they let you drop off your empties and they count them and give the deposit to a specified charity.

175 points by sethbannon 8y ago

So my question is, how much of the material they are taking is getting to recyclers? None of the articles linked within the original give a number. They do highlight that curbside pickup of recyclables is pretty much a dead end but that has been suspected for a long time. when the public is rewarded for returning a usable product, usable in the sense it is worth more to recyclers, they apparently do it quite often. the reward is instant or tangible whereas curb side is mostly forget about it which in turns leads to it not being valuable down stream. being instant furthers participation. it is a good lesson to take to other states looking on how to implement a winning system. so curbside, sounds good, feels good, doesn't really amount to something. personal drop off with instant judgment and payout works better

mediaman 8y ago
I'm not sure on what portion goes to recyclers, but I have been to the plant that processes all these return bottles, and I suspect that a fairly high percent is going through that facility. It's a 24/7 operation with sophisticated grinding, washing, and sorting equipment, producing clean flake for use by bottle manufacturers. The owners say demand has been very strong for the finished product.
- Symbiote 8y ago
  In Denmark, the system says the collected bottles and cans are of good enough quality to be re-made into food containers: > The advantage of this system is that the material can continue to have adequate quality to be used again for food. Strict health regulations cover the aluminium, plastic and glass we drink from. > This is why aluminium from used beer cans may solely be used for new beer cans if it has not been mixed with other aluminium items such as empty paint cans. Similarly, glass bottles cannot be recycled into new bottles containing soft drinks if the glass has been mixed with waste glass from light bulbs, for example. > When we send plastic, glass and aluminium from bottles and cans for processing, the material goes exclusively to facilities and companies that are approved to manufacture food packaging. We inspect regularly to ensure that the requirements are met. https://www.danskretursystem.dk/en/use-again-and-again/closed-ressource-cycle/ https://www.danskretursystem.dk/en/use-again-and-again/close... The statistics for recycling etc are here, but my Danish isn't good enough to skim through and find the relevant figures: https://www.danskretursystem.dk/presse/#/documents/aarsrapport-2017-81050 https://www.danskretursystem.dk/presse/#/documents/aarsrappo...

sigfubar 8y ago

> A row of sparkling clean reverse vending machines greet customers Yeah, these won't stay "sparkling clean" for long. I used to make an effort to redeem bottle deposits: I'd pull up in my truck and attempt to unload everything I've accumulated over the preceding couple of weeks. Eventually I got tired of jostling into position in front of the machine, arguing with the homeless, and getting into fights over who gets to go first. The sorts of people who redeem bottle deposits in NYC do a very good job at scaring away regular folks who might want to do the same.

fipple 8y ago
You could have probably auctioned off your bag to the crowd there for close to true value.
- thinelvis 8y ago
  Maybe once in the past year have I managed to have someone buy my cans and bottles for basically nothing. Probably 80 percent of the people redeeming where I go are homeless, so it's no mystery to me why they're homeless.
timdellinger 8y ago
Also, there's no incentive to keep them clean - people will come in no matter what condition the place is in. They often end up smelling like stale beer and corn syrup.
dawnerd 8y ago
That’s assuming they even work. Best bet is to go to a Costco, they at least keep it mostly clean and functional. Although you then have to stand in the returns line to get your money or argue with a cashier that they have to redeem the slip.

blakesterz 8y ago

Funny, only 10 states have bottle bills: California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Oregon and Hawaii. Delaware had one but dropped it. I thought they were way more popular for some reason. Redemption rates are all above 50% I guess that's not too bad. https://fox61.com/2018/05/17/connecticut-trails-other-states-in-bottle-redemption-rates/ https://fox61.com/2018/05/17/connecticut-trails-other-states...

keeganjw 8y ago
Plus Vermont
myWindoonn 8y ago
If one thinks about it, it's not especially surprising that the bottle bills are both uncommon and popular. In order to have a bottle bill, a state needs to tax every bottle, convince grocers to help collect bottles, and operate recycling processors. Thus, the state's population needs to be liberal/blue/neoliberal enough on tax policy, have a strong bread basket with lots of farmers, and care for the environment. Why do bottle bills tend to get high amounts of participation once enacted? Environmentalism is more popular than folks think. The bigger reason, though, might be that a culture of recycling has become popular. It can be easy to place a bottle into a container on the street, or for a restaurant to collect a bottle on behalf of its patrons, and those unredeemed bottles contribute to the redemption rate. If the deposit is large enough, then a market for scavenging bottles can form, incentivizing redemption at scale, but this is usually considered a bad thing.
- vidarh 8y ago
  They don't really need to convince grocers. The way it works in Norway is that there is an excise tax on bottles and other drink containers. Every recyclable container you recycle gives you a credit against the excise tax. There is a national return scheme that retailers can opt into to handle the recycling, but in theory they could operate their own. The return scheme in effect costs less than the excise tax. Shops can decide not to participate, but in that case they sell drinks at the same price as everyone else, but has higher costs per bottle sold. (EDIT: Shops could decide not to participate; apparently that's changed at some point in recent years; it's now compulsory) That was enough to convinces pretty much every corner store, gas station and supermarket in the country to redeem bottles. Especially because they can do so for store credit, and so it helps drive footfall of people who will tend to spend the money immediately. The hard sell is getting people to accept it as necessary to get the legal framework in place.

elektor 8y ago

Growing up in California, I assumed the bottle deposit system was a federal thing. Moving to North Carolina and seeing people causally throw away glass bottles into the trash was definitely a cultural shock for me. Kudos to Oregon for doing this.

warmwaffles 8y ago
Head to the midwest. No one wants to run a recycling operation. You'll see people throw away plastics, metals, and glass all the time. Recycle bins are hard to find when you don't live in a city.
- jgroszko 8y ago
  Michigan has had a similar 10c bottle return program for decades... Was a popular fundraiser for High School clubs
- pmiller2 8y ago
  People return bottles and cans in Michigan, though, because of the 10 cent deposit and the fact you can return them directly to any store that sells the product. Not having to go to a recycling center is huge. They are generally picked up and, presumably, recycled, by the bottler.
  - SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
    In case people aren't from Michigan and don't understand how this works... Many stores have automated scanning machines. You feel UNCRUSHED bottles and cans in, a worm drive spins them around while scanning for the barcode. If that can was sold in MI, you get a .10 credit. You just stand there feeding them in at bigger stores. Many of the grocery stores devoted a portion of their cart storage / entry to these machines. It's important to note that they are required to be uncrushed because it's a pain in the ass storing full size empties imo.
    - thoughtpalette 8y ago

claudiulodro 8y ago

As an Oregonian, I think the biggest contributor is definitely bumping the redemption value from 5 cents to 10 cents. At that price, it makes it economically viable for the homeless population to spend lots of time going around and gathering every available bottle. In my neighborhood, I even have homeless people digging through my recycling bins every few hours rummaging for bottles to cash in!

meritt 8y ago
As a kid, I earned a considerable amount of money (sometimes $5+ per day) riding my bike around and collecting cans and bottles during the summer. Those bought me a lot of MTG cards and layaway payments on the latest SNES game. Now I just set them alongside the recycling bin for the homeless as well. I feel like the neighborhood kids are really missing out on a lucrative opportunity.
- matthoiland 8y ago
  You make look silly with two giant garbage bags hanging off your bike, but at the end of the day who's holding on to 20 bucks? It felt like a fortune back then, and was an honest hard days work.
  - freehunter 8y ago
    >It felt like a fortune back then That's the biggest problem for me. It was a fortune back then. My family would collect bottles all year and cash them in for a vacation. But back then it was 10c per bottle... 30 years ago. Today, it's still 10c per bottle. With inflation, that's more like 5c per bottle. Couple that with the rise in bottled water and other non-carbonated drinks that don't have deposit on them plus a lot of store brands and specialty bottles that require you to go to multiple stores to return, a whole day of collecting bottles might only net you $5. And then you have to spend another day going back and forth between Family Fare, Kroger, Meijer, Walmart, Target, and maybe even a specialty bottle store. Even for kids, a lot of times it's not worth it for just a few bucks.
  - megy 8y ago

nkurz 8y ago

There is fear that some significant portion of the recent increase in redemption rate may be due to fraud. Oregon recently increased the redemption from 5 cents to 10 cents, but the neighboring state of Washington still does not have a deposit. This creates an incentive for people to scavenge bottles in Washington and return them across the border in Oregon. Here's a recent article about the problem: "Oregon senator to introduce bill to thwart return of bottles, cans bought in Washington: She says grocery stores ‘drowning’ in out-of-state containers" https://www.columbian.com/news/2018/dec/04/oregon-senator-to-introduce-bill-to-thwart-return-of-bottles-cans-bought-in-washington/ https://www.columbian.com/news/2018/dec/04/oregon-senator-to... Has anyone seen more exact numbers that would either support or refute this?

jwagenet 8y ago
I wouldn’t be surprised if there is some spillover from Washington or California, but I doubt that it can be an incredibly high percentage. Frankly, I think it’s better that these cans and bottles are being recycled, fraudulently or otherwise. I’m sure it hurts the Oregon pocketbook, but according to the article, the cost of the program is only six figures. This is only a problem (cost wise) when redemption is over 100%.
- sokoloff 8y ago
  There's no doubt some significant overhead to the program, that is likely modeled as being covered in part by the "slippage" of bottles that don't get returned. Fraudulent returns cut into that allowance, even before the redemption rate hits 100%.
  - theoh 8y ago
    How does the Oregon program "know" if a returned bottle is bona fide or fraudulent (from out of state)? I don't see how substituting units of a fungible quantity, which identical bottles seem to be, can have the consequences you suggest.
    - 8y ago

40acres 8y ago

This is great and all for the environment but as someone who lives in downtown Portland the effectiveness of this program has actually reduced "quality of life" downtown. Homelessness has been an issue here for a while, but by making it more economically viable to do bottle deposits this program has created mini hubs for the homeless to converge on. There is a large Target store downtown with bottle deposit machines, there is usually a group of homeless folks who hang out overnight waiting for the store to open to deposit their goods -- and they leave a trail of trash and needles behind. And generally make it unpleasant to shop at the store. Bottle deposit isn't really a means of addressing homelessness but it is just another factor when considering how chronic Portland's homeless issue is.

cheunste 8y ago
Not only is it reducing QoL in downtown...but also the surrounding area. I also work in the Pearl District and I recall my boss (who lives around 15 minutes drive from the office) stating that once in a while homeless people go to his neighborhood and pillage the trash and leaving shopping carts all over the place, which is quite unsettling. In addition, I'm glad I stay away from the target for can recycling. I think I'll stick with the Whole Paychecks down in the Pearl, even of that POS breaks way too often.

evan_ 8y ago

I'm not sure if this is a statewide thing or what but in Eugene we have a "BottleDrop" facility- it's a big warehouse with a storefront where you can take individual bottles/cans for refund, or you can bag them up in bulk and drop them off and they process them for you, and you get a credit applied to your account which you can cash out at most of the local grocery stores. I always do the bulk option, you can just drop bags off at a drive-up location. They charge a small percentage to handle it for you but it's worth it to me to have someone else handle it.

mtmail 8y ago

Similar in Germany. 2005 about 10% of bottles with deposit weren't returned, 2012 about 5%. Deposit is between 8 Euro cent (0.09 USD) and 25 Euro cent (0.28 USD). Source in German https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfandschlupf https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfandschlupf

ThomPete 8y ago

Its a great success in Denmark too

MindTooth 8y ago
And in Norway. High rates around 95 % on both bottles and aluminum boxes. Source: https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panteordning_for_flasker https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panteordning_for_flasker

rob-olmos 8y ago

Does anyone know if an OR store can tack on a bottle deposit fee for selling a bottle that's only marked CA CRV? I also tried to recycle it at the store's recycling machine and it says it's not accepted. Recently found this out but haven't looked into it yet.

alkonaut 8y ago

What are the rates in the other states? 90 is good but it would be more encouraging to see a smaller recent increase nationally.

JoshTriplett 8y ago

The article goes to pains to deride curbside recycling, but at the same time, curbside recycling means not wasting resources and time carrying cans to the nearest recycling center, not dealing with the awful experience that is the average recycling center, and not dealing with the stores to get the resulting small change. How much gas is used driving cans and bottles to the store? I just throw cans into the curbside recycling bin along with all the other recycling, and live with the 10 cent waste as yet another tax.

rdiddly 8y ago

I hate to be so cynical but is this a submarine article for BottleDrop? I thought of it it because (ironically) I was interested and paid a visit to their website.

jimmar 8y ago

I live in Michigan and I hate the bottle deposits. I would strongly prefer just putting bottles in recycling. Bottle deposit machines break down frequently, the machines fill up, they only take cans sold at the store you bought them from, that part of the store smells bad and is dirty and sticky, and the cans take up a non-trivial amount of space in your home.

blahyawnblah 8y ago
I'm a lifelong Oregonian and I agree. Taking bottles back for redemption is a pain. The places stink, there's always a line, and always one or two broken machines. Then you get a whole $10. I just stick everything in regular recycling. I would guess homeless people are the only reason it's anywhere near 90%. Everyone I know does curb side recycling.
- dgzl 8y ago
  I think you've identified a point against your argument without realizing it. If we didn't put dollar value on recycling, the recycling wouldn't be performed at the rate it currently is. Michigan is different however. When you spend half the year surrounded by snow and freezing temps, even the idea of going outside is numbing. I was living in Michigan and Illinois this last year, and they are light-years away when it comes to interest and availability of recycling process, compared to Oregon.
  - freehunter 8y ago
    >When you spend half the year surrounded by snow and freezing temps, even the idea of going outside is numbing I've seen you make this comment twice in this thread and while you say you've lived in Michigan I think you drastically underestimate the resiliency of the majority of Michiganders. It was negative wind chill recently and now that it's back up to the mid 20s I see tons of people walking around without a coat on. The cold doesn't bother us that much.
    - dgzl 8y ago

rmason 8y ago

We're doing slightly better on the redemption rate here in Michigan though it has slipped in the past several years. Since our economy has revived I anecdotally see fewer people out collecting bottles from the side of the road. http://www.bottlebill.org/legislation/usa/michigan.htm http://www.bottlebill.org/legislation/usa/michigan.htm

dgzl 8y ago
I was just living in Michigan and I have to say, recycling was always an afterthought to people I met. Likewise, your state is covered in snow and freezing for half the year. This are big challenges for anyone.
- freehunter 8y ago
  Right after the snow thaws is a great time to go collecting bottles. Plenty of people throw them out of their car and they get covered in snow, so when the snow thaws there is a ton of bottles all along the road.
  - dgzl 8y ago
    I see your point, and I remember seeing trash scattered in the spring time.

zeroname 8y ago

Has somebody bothered to estimate the cost of this whole process in terms of overall energy expenditure and waste of irreplacable human lifetime? Achieving a 90% redemption rate could still be 100% nonsense.

Zimahl 8y ago

As an Oregonian, I hate this system. It's old, archaic and now pointless. The idea behind it was to increase recycling of cans and bottles, and it did it's job. In the 70s and 80s, it was great to push that for the social good. But it's done it's job, two generations are now recycling more than ever and the coverage for curbside recycling is very high in Oregon. But the redemption rate has plummeted in the last decade! Of course it has, people don't want to have the hassle of taking cans into a location, wasting time putting each one in the machine, and getting a couple bucks back. So they were forgoing the 5 cents and just putting it in the curbside bin. News flash - the cans in the curbside bin didn't count toward redemption rates! Oregon also made it so stores didn't have to take redemptions anymore and opened redemption centers that aren't very conveniently location for most of the state. So the rate fell - and now they have increased the rate to get people to take the cans in again. Eventually the rate is going to fall AGAIN, and not because people aren't recycling the cans, they just aren't taking them in the redemption centers. The system is now worthless and just kept going because. Directly north of us, Washington doesn't have a can or bottle redemption system and there aren't cans and bottles everywhere - people just put them in the curbside bins like everything else.

Sharlin 8y ago
As one datapoint, in Finland the deposit system works fairly well as far as I understand. It helps that most beverage containers are now plastic or aluminum instead of heavy glass that's a bitch to drag into a store. I at least just dump glass bottles into the glass recycling bin, deposit or not. Bottles and cans with deposit that are thrown into curb-side mixed-waste bins (or just on the ground) are usually very quickly collected by people looking for extra cash (on summer weekends this can net you quite a lot!) In some places I've seen small separate can receptables attached to garbage bins that can hold a stack of cans so that it's easy for someone to come grab them without having to delve into the garbage bin proper, which I find a very good idea.

xfitm3 8y ago

My area has a problem with contaminated material collected for recycling. It's so bad there is an active marketing campaign urging users not to recycle unless they're absolutely certain the material is recyclable. I witnessed a recycling collection truck dump its entire load at the landfill, and an employee mentioned its a regular occurrence. I'm fortunate that I have great trash collection. I can dispose of up to 6 yards per week. Although my area has one of the lowest recycling rates of the country.

jdeibele 8y ago

I used to put my bottles and cans curbside. Most of the folks picking them up are, I'm sure, as honest as I am or even more so. They just need another source of income. On the other hand, we and the neighbors have had things disappear. People have prowlers in their back yards "looking for cans". So it seemed like a good idea to stop setting them out or even having them visible. What I do now: you can buy bags and bar code labels for about $.10/pair. When a bag is full of recyclables, you tie it off, put your label on it, and drop it off at one of the BottleDrop centers. There's two kinds: one where they have people working there and one where they don't (the "Express" versions). At the Express places, they truck the bags to somewhere else where they're counted. They charge $.40/bag to count them. So for $.50, or 5 bottles, I can have someone else count them instead of standing on the sticky, stinky floor to shove in bottles one at a time. It's about 8-10%, assuming you can get 50-60 bottles and cans in a bag. There are also grocery stores where they let you drop off your empties and they count them and give the deposit to a specified charity.