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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

#161

Post by Sharlin »

Zimahl wrote: post #153

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 decad…

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.

Re: Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

#162

Post by dgzl »

freehunter wrote: post #157
dgzl wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>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…

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?

Re: Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

#163

Post by RandallBrown »

claudiulodro wrote: post #27
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.

It's very easy to go over this limit by simply going to a different checkout line, or going through the same line multiple times.

At least that's how I got over the limit in Michigan when I was in college. We used to save all our cans and bottles for the whole year and return them all at once.

You're not going to make much profit off the effort though, unless you value your time at $0.

Re: Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

#164

Post by Sharlin »

jimmar wrote: post #132

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.

> they only take cans sold at the store you bought them from

That might be the biggest issue. Around here (Finland) the deposit system is universal; most beverage containers are standardized and in the system by default. And the machines accept containers not within the system, they just won't give you money for them, so you don't have to worry accidentally mixing containers with deposit and those without.

Re: Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

#165

Post by RandallBrown »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #155
benj111 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No...? What? I get that Washington bottle buyer hasn't paid a deposit. But if Oregon bottle buyer has paid a deposit for a bottle, but chooses not to recycle it, there is a deposit that has been paid, but not claimed. What is the problem with the Washington bottle buyer returning their bottle in return for the deposit back? A bottle is returned, which is surely the aim of the deposit. The return rate is below 100% so…

Ah, I understand. You're assuming the deposits are fungible. I wasn't. I guess Oregon is pretty close to finding out what happens when the return rate hits 100.1%; that would be interesting.

Michigan has had a 10 cent deposit for decades and fraud isn't an issue.

There's even a whole Seinfeld episode about why it doesn't work.

Re: Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

#166

Post by sctb »

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #111
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…

> may be due to fraud You mean they're 3d printing fake bottles? No? Oh, did they buy their own injection molding equipment and producing bottles? No? Oh, so they're gathering corporate trash and returning it? And you call _that_ fraud? Uh huh. Sounds like the bottle return is doing a hell of a job.

Can you please be a little bit less cranky? The biggest issue is that we don't stand to learn anything by comments like these.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

#167

Post by schoen »

wtvanhest wrote: post #123
schoen wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you mean San Francisco, there used to be a place next to the Castro Safeway, but apparently now there are only places down on Bayshore.

IMO, the law needs to change. If you don't have a place to drop off bottles/cans within 3 miles, the tax should be removed from items in those areas. It is completely pointless to have an incentive that can only be achieved by driving for 45 minutes.

I think it's much harder to claim CRV refunds, and many fewer people do so regularly, than the designers of the system anticipated.

Re: Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

#168

Post by T-hawk »

dgzl wrote: post #142
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…

Homegrown Oregonian here: it's common knowledge that to maximize profit against the system, a person should work in Vancouver WA where cost of living is low and state income tax doesn't exist, and then shop in Oregon where sales tax doesn't exist. The bottle return scheme wouldn't surprise me either, as the PNW is profoundly supportive of recycling.

Those discrepancies should already be accounted for by the entities concerned, right? Vancouver WA employers should be able to pay a lower tax-free salary to match the net of an Oregon tax-burdened salary, and Oregon retailers should be able to charge a higher tax-free price to match a WA tax-inclusive price.

Maybe they don't in practice because consumers don't rationally consider the net numbers, but theoretically they should.

Re: Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

#169

Post by jerrac »

cronix wrote: post #143
sokoloff wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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%.

Yeah, like building huge dedicated recycling centers. Those aren't cheap. You used to return the bottle/can to the store, who returned them back to the distribution companies when they were dropping off new orders. Now there are huge areas where they got rid of returning to the place of purchase and you have to return them to these large, brand new, dedicated recycling centers. I have no idea why they do that, or who…

When I worked at Safeway or WalMart here in OR, the can returns were nightmares. Extremely dirty, they'd fill up fast, and customers were always in a bad mood when they had to wait for me to get the machines working again. Oh, yeah, those machines were horrid. They got jammed all the time.

Oh, and stores would limit what kind of returns they'd accept. So I'd have say, sorry, we don't sell that here so you can't return it here.

So, I'd imagine some of that is why they created the centers. Which, btw, I only just learned about from this topic.... :)

Re: Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

#170

Post by megy »

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 thought someone ran the numbers, and it just wasn't worthwhile. Maybe that was from NY?
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