Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate • Hacker News Board

Re: Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

#191

Post by Kalium » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 4:51 AM UTC

craftyguy wrote: post #189

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…

> and discovered that others in his neighborhood also reported having their recycling bins rummaged through in pursuit of bottles and cans. Yea, I'm in Oregon, and this happens to me too. Honestly, who cares? What they are "stealing" (lol) is being recycled. If this senator cared enough, he would take his bottles/cans to the store and get credit for it. The point is, he doesn't care that much, but somehow feels entit…

The issue is rarely that people go rummaging through the bins. The issue is more often that the people who go rummaging through the bins do so in a way that involves pulling out all the contents, dumping it on the street or curb, and then leaving without cleaning up.

There's a related issue where the residents don't always trust that the salvagers will content themselves solely to collecting redeemable cans.

Re: Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

#192

Post by steven2012 » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 4:53 AM UTC

rconti wrote: post #13

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.

Living in California, I've never once redeemed a bottle. I toss it into the recycling bin.

The waste company has people that go through the recycling and pull out all the salvageable bottles and get the deposit themselves, so you can consider it a "donation" to SF Recology or wherever you live.

Re: Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

#193

Post by moate » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 2:24 PM UTC

ars wrote: post #185

moate wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, so you're down to $.0499 (aprox) per bottle. That's not taking into account the time needed to do this, or the time needed to collect the bottles, or the gas/equipment needed to haul the bottles. This sounds like a dozens of dollars level scam, not millions.

$0.05 and 10 seconds per bottle is $18/hour, which is decent. (Although that doesn't account for actually getting the bottle, or travel, or redeeming the bottle which isn't very fast.) > not millions No, not individually, but if tons of people are doing it all day, it adds up. And bumping the fee to $0.10 makes it $36/hour which is very attractive to someone who doesn't have a job. Again, the actual earnings are lowe…

This plan doesn't scale. You can't bump the fee to $.10 an hour because there's fixed costs associated with this specific plan (paper, glue, transportation, etc).

There is a viable way to do recycling fraud, but DIY stickers isn't it.

Re: Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

#194

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 3:09 PM UTC

ghostly_s wrote: post #47

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…

When I was in Berlin recently it seemed ubiquitous to set redeemable bottles aside for the homeless to collect, or just hand them to homeless people directly. Seemed like only the tourists were throwing them in the trash. Not to say dumping bins doesn't happen but certaintly didn't seem like a widespread problem -- and how exactly does it cost "a fortune" to clean up a pile of trash in the street? Street cleaners are…

In Sweden it works the same. When you are walking down the street and finish your drink, it's common courtesy to not throw it in the trash can, but instead just leave it on the ground right next to the trash can for someone to collect.

They've also basically completely mitigated the fraud aspect of this by having all machines in all grocery stores scan the UPC on the bottle to determine whether it is manufactured in Sweden. The deposit is pretty significant there too, 1 SEK, which is equivalent to about 10 cents right now.

Re: Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

#195

Post by flurdy » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 7:09 PM UTC

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…

The 95% return rate has been kept up in more recent times even if the 1-2kr deposit has become less incentive due to price increases as they added a lottery option to all the machines. [1]

So instead of collecting your deposit, you can now click a button to see if you win a price (up to 1 million NOK), and if you lose you donate it to the Red Cross.

I remember as a kid in the 80s collecting bottles at events etc, back when a bottle of Coke was 6kr so the 1 kr deposit made a difference. I feel happy these days to press the donate button though when I am in the country.

[1] https://pantelotteriet.no/english/