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Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

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Re: Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

#91

Post by bluGill »

vidarh wrote: post #68
martinald wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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). No…

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.

Re: Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

#92

Post by dyeje »

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 don't see why one would conclude it's fraud. Michigan's bottle deposit rate has been 90%+ consistently with a 10 cent deposit.

Re: Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

#93

Post by jwagenet »

lolsal wrote: post #30
jwagenet wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The border cities of Washington, Clark county (Vancouver) and Tri Cities, only account for ~600k people compared to ~2M in Portland and 4M in Oregon overall [some quick searching]. I would expect the fraud rate coming from Washington's central and northern cities to be much lower. By headcount alone, the Washington contribution is maybe conservatively 25%, even if you think those urban areas are recycling at a higher rate than Oregon's rural areas.

Re: Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

#94

Post by thinelvis »

fipple wrote: post #12
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…

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

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.

Re: Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

#95

Post by astura »

llukas wrote: post #72
tyre wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does check the barcode, but a generic coke bottle could have been purchased in Washington and returned across the boarder for 10 cents. That’s a valid bottle, but an abuse of the system because they are getting 10 cents from Oregon that was never paid. The point of the program is you pay 10 cents and get it back if you recycle.

> The point of the program is you pay 10 cents and get it back if you recycle. The point of program is to recycle bottles. Exchanging money is means to an end not an end itself.

And to reduce litter as well.

Re: Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

#96

Post by vidarh »

bluGill wrote: post #91
vidarh wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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). No…

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.

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.

Re: Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

#97

Post by tdeck »

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!

This happens a lot in SF too. I'm not sure if it actually does anything to promote recycling since the bottles were already in a recycle bin to begin with.

Re: Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

#98

Post by jnellis »

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!

This is exactly the scenario in Los Angeles. There is a collective army of bottle and can collectors pulling them from recycle bins and everywhere else. Bins are scoured a dozen times a day; you won't find lone can on the street anywhere.

Re: Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

#99

Post by astura »

myWindoonn wrote: post #45
blakesterz wrote: post #2

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...

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…

They don't really "convince" grocers to collect bottles any more than they "convince" them to collect and redeem sales tax. It's done by legislation.

Some places (California?) grocers don't accept bottles for redemption, recycling centers do instead.

Re: Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

#100

Post by evan_ »

ceejayoz wrote: post #52
claudiulodro wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You wouldn't defraud the system by taking redeeming at someone else's store. You'd open your own version of something like https://www.bottledropcenters.com/ .

I'm guessing that redemption centers need to put up a hefty bond. To get enough volume of cans to make it even approaching worth your time to open a redemption center you'd need to collect tens of thousands of bottles and cans from hundreds or thousands of people, who would all want to be compensated in some way, that would be difficult to hide for very long.
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