Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

opb.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 195 posts

Re: Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

#21

Post by sokoloff »

jwagenet wrote: post #14
nkurz wrote: post #9

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…

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 1…

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%.

Re: Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

#22

Post by mediaman »

Shivetya wrote: post #6

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. t…

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.

Re: Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

#23

Post by cheunste »

40acres wrote: post #18

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,…

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.

Re: Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

#24

Post by SlowRobotAhead »

Afforess wrote: post #16
nkurz wrote: post #9

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…

Is this still even a thing? Michigan also has a 10 cent deposit, and fraud was an issue in the 90's, but it's been fixed since. Grocery stores use automated bottle scanners to check barcodes. I'm not sure how you could "fool" a machine that needs a barcode for each physical bottle return.

Exactly what I was going to write. There is no import of cans from Ohio to Michigan, because it doesn't work.

Re: Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

#25

Post by baddox »

warmwaffles wrote: post #4
elektor wrote: post #3

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.

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.

To be fair, it’s probably much more expensive to run a residential recycling collection program in areas of low population density.

Re: Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

#26

Post by timdellinger »

sigfubar wrote: post #7

> 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…

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.

Re: Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

#27

Post by claudiulodro »

nkurz wrote: post #9

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…

The large grocery stores in Oregon are required to accept up to 144 bottles per person per day (or $14.40/person/store/day in potential profit). At that price it doesn't really seem to be worth it to do that sort of arbitrage.

Re: Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

#28

Post by AlwaysRock »

claudiulodro wrote: post #5

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!

I grew up in Vermont where there was/is a 5 cent deposit on cans and a 10 or 15 cent deposit on larger bottles or liquor bottles. I did dozens of, "bottle drives" where we'd go around and ask houses if we could take their cans to raise money.

If we spent a few hours doing it we'd get a couple hundred dollars easily. But damn I've never smelt anything worse than a blue massive trash barrel filled with beers cans that are all a year or older. Worth about $20 on it's own though.

Re: Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

#29

Post by rhinoceraptor »

Afforess wrote: post #16
nkurz wrote: post #9

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…

Is this still even a thing? Michigan also has a 10 cent deposit, and fraud was an issue in the 90's, but it's been fixed since. Grocery stores use automated bottle scanners to check barcodes. I'm not sure how you could "fool" a machine that needs a barcode for each physical bottle return.

Michigan's bottle return isn't really a good system considering most of the machines will always reject bottles from other store brands, and will often reject less popular bottles/cans from the same store. Plus, it only applies to carbonated drinks.

Re: Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

#30

Post by lolsal »

jwagenet wrote: post #14
nkurz wrote: post #9

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…

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 1…

> 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.

Post reply on HN