a doubled deposit would be unfairly punishing for people who recycle everything they can (and then some), but won't have time to head to safeway for a stinky time and a handful of change, even if it's ten cents a bottle. the bottle return is no one's idea of a good time, and i can't picture legislative changes that will make it more pleasant. if the shopping-cart people want to sort through our bins for the money, they're welcome to it, but i don't feel like i owe them a raise for doing what the guys with trucks would do a few hours later. i doubt the slobs who chuck aluminum cans in a landfill are going to suddenly grow halos and go in for their ten cents, either.

i hope legislators look into whether there is actually a new group of people who will start to recycle before they double the deposit on those of us who already do.

that said, adding five-cent deposits to plastic water bottles would be great. those shopping-cart folks do a super-efficient job, and the more areas they expand to, the better. given the petroleum shortage, plastic recycling should be downright patriotic.

Where it all went wrong was when inflation undermined the value of the deposit to the point that the stores decided to automate bottle returns. Half of what you put in there gets spat back out. If you try to save money buying a store brand at one place then you have to separate your cans according to the store where you bought them. If we had a deposit linked to inflation (maybe going up 5 cents every ten years or something) and required stores to accept all cans and bottles, whether from another store or not, then maybe we'd have something workable again.

How many people honestly return their cans/bottles for deposit? I bet you'd find that a much higher percentage would recycle with a good curbside program.

If we had indexed the deposit to rise with inflation back in 1971, say in nickel increments, it would be something like a quarter now. I expect that a lot of people would recycle their containers if the deposit was a quarter.

The last time this idea went on the ballot (raise the deposit to a dime and expand the containers covered, IIRC) it started with something like 70% or 80% approval. The proponents (OSPIRG, I think) only raised a couple of hundred thousand, and were outspent 20 to 1 by the grocery lobby. Their campaign was that "this measure replaces the bottle bill with an incredibly confusing and unworkable system" and featured a campaign ad in which The Stupidest Man Alive was trying to figure out which of his containers could be returned and which could be recycled. Because he was too stupid to look at the container to see the ten cent deposit label. Or something. Anyway, industry spent something like $4 million to bamboozle the voters with an "it's confusing" message.

Moral of the story: improving the bottle bill has broad popular support, and therefore is a winning issue at the ballot box, but only if supporters can raise at least two or three million dollars to counter the lies and obfuscations of the well-funded opposition. If they try to pull the "its confusing" message again, it should be met with a combination of accurate information and scathing, well-deserved mockery.

Fortunately, the internet has completely changed the landscape when it comes to fundraising for grass-roots issues. Today, raising $2 million to support an improved bottle bill is a realistic possibility.

Go to any other state in the country and you will find a bottles and beer cans lying in the ditches, in the woods, at campsites etc. In Oregon and other states with bottle bills, someone usually picks that stuff up and gets the refund.

When the bottle bill was implemented a good number of the containers were refillable. Those days are gone forever.

That 5 cent deposit meant a lot more when you only paid 10 or 20 cents for the beer. But I am not sure there would be popular support if you tried to raise the deposit to 25 cents.

There is already money made on the deposit - do you really think every bottle gets returned? The problem, I think, is that the money from un-returned bottles goes to the distributors instead of to the store.

And its obvious that some uncarbonated beverages need to be covered, the question is which ones.

Its all so confusing ...

Jeff:

Well said. I'm probably a typical guy on recyclables, at least in Oregon. Back in South Carolina, where I'm from, when you ask where the bottles go, you get a weird look and a nod towards the trash can. :)

We recycle everything our provider takes. Oddly, our old garbage company took all our plastics, including clamshell packaging and whatnot, but our new company doesn't take that stuff, our even yogurt containers and the plastic "box" tofu comes in, and the like. But whatever they take, we put out. The trollers come by and get the bottles and cans. What's left gets to the recycling center via our carrier.

We quit taking the bottles and cans back because it's disgusting, smelly, and time consuming, not to mention frustrating when you come back with 5-10% of what you brought in unrecognized or unaccepted stuff. And a voucher for $2.85.

I'd hazard that we would not change our ways for even a $0.25 deposit because it's still smelly and I'm still too busy with two kids and our jobs and all that. I would just wind up paying $1.20 more per six pack (even soda, which costs about that much), buying less, or both.

What about education and shame? That's pretty much what motivated me to do it in the first place. "What do you mean, you throw the bottles out? DO you hate the Earth?" Or my wife, "You're breaking my heart." No lie. That's her line. Or was, anyway.

Portland is sufficiently Aquamarine (blue and green) to support recycling without punitive addenda to our bottle bill, don't you think?

Full disclosure, I am a Halliburton consultant for Big Oil and the Grocery industry with Skull and Bones ties and my mother's in the Portland FBI office. ;)

Jeff Alworth said :

"I'm asking the question, not hiding an agenda--I honestly don't know. But Portland now recycles 59% of its waste, and most of that isn't linked to a financial incentive. So I'm just asking the question."

Well it is kind of. You'd have to pay for an additional can of waste per month, at least. In my household we get by with monthly trash pick up and hence save 7 dollars per month (Yippee!). But we usually manage to fill our two recycling bins at least twice per month. I have to admit that we often put deposit bottles in the recycling bin. It's not a loss for the scavengers (not a pejorative for me) who regularly get them.

I support the bottle bill wholeheartedly and would vote for exapansion. Still, another alternative is to make waste generally more expensive by upping tipping fees for waste. This would incent recycling indirectly.

As a Halliburton consultant, we're required to sneer constantly. :)

There are 11 deposit states: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, and Vermont. All are a nickel except for Michigan's dime. When it comes to aluminum, all have a recycling rate over 70 percent, with Michigan's being over 95 percent...though no one has any precision measurements of what's brought in from out of state. Aluminum recycling has been trending downward nationally for several years, being just over 50 percent now...which shows how deposits help that rate. States with bottle bills have definitely seen a reduction in litter. Note that in '72, there were 21.75 cans per pound...now there are almost 34 cans per pound.

Rep. Vicki Berger (R-Salem) is pushing an expansion of Oregon's bottle bill. Adding things like plastic water bottles is a great idea.

It pays for the processing.

Just to be clear. It is kept by the bottler. It may offset some of their processing costs, but I think most of the studies have showed there is a net income for the bottlers. I believe the last initiative would have had some of that money shared with the stores who do the collection to help offset their processing costs.

The only way I would support fixing the Bottle Bill is to force the merchants who take them back not to restrict the amount per day of cans/bottles taken back and to requeire the merchants (Fred Meyer, safeway, et al) to actually have covered and /or inside bottle recycling areas. It annoys me that these merchants acually discourage recyling in the winter months because their areas of recyling are open to the elements. I personally do not recycle bottles any longer because of weather concerns from the outdoor areas that these merchants have. Plus, a nickle a can/bottle isn't worth the effort to recylce anyway considering the fact that the recylce areas are all outdoors now and that attracts a lot of parasitic bums.

Jeff, great question. From all the studies I've read, I think it's a messy combination of both. Nearly all of the states with deposit laws are generally "greener" in the first place. Our neighbors to the north are an example of a greener state with a pretty good recycling rate but no deposit. But if one wants to look towards examples of money helping to motivate recycling:

• There are multiple cases of groups making millions (illegally) bringing cans from several states into California for the deposit. That example also brings up additional administrative burdens of recycling (at least in CA)...investigating and prosecuting such folks.

• Maine did some studying regarding markets near its borders and found that some were paying more in deposits than they received via sales. That's why Maine no longer collects a percentage of the deposits to fund other programs.

• And at least around here, the homeless help keep our roadways cleaner by recycling for the $$.

One thing recycling has clearly taught us is that the easier it is, the more people will recycle. Thus, the debate about going to curbside service versus having to take bottles, cans, etc. to a recycling location is certainly valid.

What if you could redeem your deposit at curbside?

Please no deposit refund on bottled water. Keeping bottled water as cheap as possible may act as an incentive for people to purchase and consume water (healthy) over all that other sugar loaded garbage that people drink.

I think the state needs to address the hassle consumers face in attempting to return bottles to stores for a refund.

It is a major chore to return bottles to stores now. Most stores place bottle returns in inconvenient locations, operating only during certain hours of the day even when stores are open 24 hours, or not accepting bottles for return at all.

On top of this inconvenience, many of the larger stores only accept returns through automated machines that are many times broken or covered in slime from the stores not keeping bottle return machines clean.

Until the current bottle return situation is streamlined and better managed by stores accepting bottles for return, why are we even discussing the addition of more items to the deposit list?

Additionally, there is the aspect of fraud. Many intelligent college students around the state print off barcodes on home computer systems for accepted items, tape them to unaccepted items, and process them through the automated machines for beer money. The state needs to pass legislation making such action a crime and post a statute warning on machines citing what the punishment would be for such a crime.

I hate the bottle bill. It's the most overrated public policy in Oregon. I would love to put all my recyclables, including cans and beer bottles, in the big blue bin that I faithfully take to the curb every other week. If I can't recycle plastic water bottles, I'm going to freak. Is there any evidence that doing away with the bottle bill and making everything recyclable, using curbside recycling, would not have the same outcome as the current law? I realize not every community in Oregon has curbside recycling. Why not? Maybe there ought to be a small tax on bottles to create incentives for statewide curbside recycling. I'd gladly pay a few cents a bottle for that. I just don't want to be bothered with having to get my deposit back.

The proposals to increase the deposit and expand the types of containers covered are simple, common sense measures that should have been passed years ago. Evan mentioned that the return rate has slipped since the program started. Raising the deposit to make it --once again --worth people's while to return the containers would reverse this trend.

DJK mentioned the campaign to enact exactly these changes 10 years ago. He's correct in attributing its failure to obscene spending by the supermarket chains, but there was another factor too. Governor Kitzhaber opposed the measure, saying that he would be bringing a better plan forward to the Legislature. Well, his "better plan" would have increased the deposit charge to 10-cents, with 5-cents being refunded to the consumer and the other 5 going to fund salmon recovery. In other words, it tied the bottle return program to an entirely different issue, and did nothing to get return rates back up. That bill, of course, didn't get a hearing from the lopsided R legislature, who would have sawed their own legs off rather than give Kitz a successful program to run for reelection on.

I'm convinced that many moderates voted against the measure due to Kitz's opposition. While I respect the man, he can be infuriating sometimes, and I'll never quite forgive him for his position on this one. Solid waste is a huge issue that most people don't give the slightest thought to, and the bottle bill is one of the few things that's had a real impact on the problem.

I think the same language could pass now, even with huge spending by Safeway, et al., if it was positioned properly. There are many rural city councilors who are well aware of the high cost of landfilling trash and might be pursuaded to support this measure. If it's just another Portland green thing, with no coordination or involvement by the rest of the state, it will be easy for the supermarkets to kill it.

John

I would love to put all my recyclables, including cans and beer bottles, in the big blue bin that I faithfully take to the curb every other week. If I can't recycle plastic water bottles, I'm going to freak.

There is nothing to keep you from recycling bottles, you just give up the deposit. Mine mostly end up going to the homeless.

I just don't want to be bothered with having to get my deposit back.

That is the reason the deposit works. There are a lot of people that can't be bothered to pack out those beer cans they took with them fishing. The deposit needs to be enough of an incentive to get them to do it or for someone else to pack them out if they don't.

Its quite a shock when you go to other states without a bottle bill and see aluminum cans out in the middle of nowhere that have obviously been there for a long time.

Again - If available, wouldn't it be better to get the deposit at the curbside? No machines,no extras trips, no limits, etc.

I used to live in Michigan. Bringing bottles and cans to be recycled was easy. Just went to a supermarket. They had automated machines that accepted the bottles and cans, and you got a receipt that printed out what your take was. Then you either used it to get a store credit or some cash.

At 10 cents a bottle/can, it paid for meals, laundry, and some poker games when I was a student there.

It was a big incentive for me not to throw away the recyclables.

We don't want to encourage people trolling our bins, do we?

I don't know why not. Having people who go through garbage and pick out the recyclables is a service isn't it? Why wouldn't you want to encourage this?

The deposit could be slightly more than what people get back when they return the bottles in order to finance the expanded bottle recycling program. If there was funding to create additional recycling centers and hire workers to handle the increased volume of empty cans and bottles, that would also create jobs.

Frank Dufay wrote:

Not a good idea. We don't want to encourage people trolling our bins, do we? (And you're not doing the homeless a favor if they get busted, as they sometimes do.)

I don't get it. What do they get busted for? Bottom line the only difference between dumpster divers recycling and the recyclers recycling is the fuel the truck uses between your house and the recycle center, no?

Perhaps it's just the thought that street people come into too close proximity to your school children. How about turning off Channel 12, and taking your precious rug rats down to a soup kitchen and you all spending a shift getting to know the folks involved?

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