
Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate - sethbannon
https://www.opb.org/news/article/oregon-bottle-deposit-redemption-rate-2018/
======
nkurz
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...](https://www.columbian.com/news/2018/dec/04/oregon-senator-to-introduce-
bill-to-thwart-return-of-bottles-cans-bought-in-washington/)

Has anyone seen more exact numbers that would either support or refute this?

~~~
jwagenet
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%.

~~~
lolsal
> 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.

Why do you doubt that it could be a high percentage? A huge number of folks
live in Vancouver across the OR/WA border and commute into Portland every day,
and do their shopping in OR for the lack of sales tax.

~~~
evjim
You just said it. They do their shopping in Oregon. So they probably buy the
bottles their tax free. Save ten cents on tax, spend it on deposit. It's a
wash to the consumer.

~~~
dgzl
Many people in Oregon just give away their cans to the street. I imagine this
is true in Washington as well. If a person collects free cans in Washington,
where they're worth less, and brings them to Oregon for a higher return, then
they would be gaming the system.

~~~
megy
Yes, of course, but there would not be a lot of them.

------
claudiulodro
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!

~~~
martinald
Is this actually a good thing? In Germany (esp Berlin) homeless people do this
a lot, but I've seen them basically empty a whole trash container on the
street to get a few bottles. While it's great there is a revenue source for
the homeless; I can't help thinking that it's not a great way to do it.

Must cost a fortune to clean up the trash after people have been through them,
way more than the few (euro)cents you get back...

~~~
vidarh
If there is such a problem with homeless people that desperate, then perhaps
it is a sign one should do something about helping the homeless.

I grew up in Norway, and while Norway certainly isn't free of homeless people,
I never saw this despite a widespread bottle return system (in fact, the
Norwegian company Tomra has a majority of the world "reverse vending machine"
market, primarily focused on bottle returns).

Norway have had a return rate in the 95%+ range for years in large part
because a variety of groups of people see empty bottles as an income source.

I think this to a large extent have also culturally solved the problem: while
some people certainly throw their bottles in the bin, there's little reason
not to instead put your bottle down next to it, because you know it will get
picked up.

~~~
bluGill
You make it sound easy. Homeless is a hard problem: most of those people are
mentally ill, and do not trust the helpers. If they can live on their own
without help it can well be argued they are happier that way then in a home
will professional help. This is a very complex subject that I've only
scratched the surface of.

~~~
vidarh
Yes, but there is a significant difference between people "just" being
homeless, and people being homeless _and_ so desperate that they cause other
problems. One can alleviate their problems in many ways even if one does not
manage to remove homelessness.

------
blakesterz
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...](https://fox61.com/2018/05/17/connecticut-trails-other-states-in-
bottle-redemption-rates/)

~~~
myWindoonn
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
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
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
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.

~~~
pmiller2
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
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
Moved away from MI, but I was not a fan of getting gross old soda on my hands
when feeding them into the machines. The .10c is something I'm missing though.

~~~
astura
That's why you buy a pack of latex gloves. I don't see anyone redeeming
bottles/cans without wearing gloves.

~~~
thoughtpalette
My adolescent mind was not that sharp, but that's a great idea.

------
40acres
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
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.

------
jimmar
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
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
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
>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
I understand the resiliency of Michiganders, my point was about maintaining
incentive for the bottle program. If there was no deposit, how many people
would collect bottles on the side of the road?

------
Zimahl
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
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.

------
JoshTriplett
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.

------
Shivetya
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
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
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/close...](https://www.danskretursystem.dk/en/use-again-and-again/closed-
ressource-cycle/)

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/aarsrappo...](https://www.danskretursystem.dk/presse/#/documents/aarsrapport-2017-81050)

------
sigfubar
> 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
You could have probably auctioned off your bag to the crowd there for close to
true value.

~~~
thinelvis
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.

------
xfitm3
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.

------
rmason
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
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
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
I see your point, and I remember seeing trash scattered in the spring time.

------
mtmail
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)

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

------
evan_
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.

------
jdeibele
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.

------
rdiddly
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.

------
ThomPete
Its a great success in Denmark too

~~~
MindTooth
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)

------
zeroname
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.

