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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

#101

Post by penagwin »

thoughtpalette wrote: post #56
SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In case people aren't from Michigan and don't understand how this works... Many stores have automated scanning machines. You feel UNCRUSHED bottles and cans in, a worm drive spins them around while scanning for the barcode. If that can was sold in MI, you get a .10 credit. You just stand there feeding them in at bigger stores. Many of the grocery stores devoted a portion of their cart storage / entry to these machine…

Moved away from MI, but I was not a fan of getting gross old soda on my hands when feeding them into the machines. The .10c is something I'm missing though.

I've lived in MI since I was 7, I remember developing "strategies" for how I reach my hand in, the orientation of the grab, etc. to minimize "splash".

Those with "real pop addictions" won't have any issues though ;)

Re: Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

#102

Post by theoh »

sokoloff wrote: post #82
theoh wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does the Oregon program "know" if a returned bottle is bona fide or fraudulent (from out of state)? I don't see how substituting units of a fungible quantity, which identical bottles seem to be, can have the consequences you suggest.

If OBRC collects a dime on 2.0 billion bottles per year ($200M deposit revenue), with an assumption that 20% of those will not end up being returned (resulting in $40M in slippage) and has overall annual budget costs of $34M, they are ever so slightly profitable. Just a small amount of "excess" returns (bottles for which OBRC did not initially collect the dime, but pays out the dime) can push the overall program into…

You seem to be saying that if the scheme somehow becomes more successful than expected, they stand to go into the red. Maybe so. But this is surely the case whatever source the "excess" or unexpected returns come from.

If you're claiming that the scheme is currently funded in such a way that something like a 3% improvement in return rate (fraudulent or genuine, OBRC can't tell) is a problematic financial event, then I suppose I get it.

The externality argument based on the cost of landfill (made by another commenter) is sensitive to whether the bottles come from out of state.

Re: Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

#103

Post by aodin »

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…

As others have pointed out, Michigan has had a 10 cent deposit since 1978 and consistently has redemption rates over 90%, even hitting 94.2% in 2014: http://www.bottlebill.org/legislation/usa/michigan.htm

The fear that these rates were the product of fraud even lead to amendments to the recycling act in 2008, namely adding a state-specific mark to bottles. Yet the redemption rate remains over 90%.

Re: Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

#104

Post by astura »

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #32
pmiller2 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People return bottles and cans in Michigan, though, because of the 10 cent deposit and the fact you can return them directly to any store that sells the product. Not having to go to a recycling center is huge. They are generally picked up and, presumably, recycled, by the bottler.

In case people aren't from Michigan and don't understand how this works... Many stores have automated scanning machines. You feel UNCRUSHED bottles and cans in, a worm drive spins them around while scanning for the barcode. If that can was sold in MI, you get a .10 credit. You just stand there feeding them in at bigger stores. Many of the grocery stores devoted a portion of their cart storage / entry to these machine…

These are called "reverse vending machines."

They are a pain in the ass though because they are always filling up and/or jamming and then you have to call and wait for staff to come fix it. If you are redeeming a whole cart of bottles you're going to have to call the staff over at least a couples times. They are always in use so you have to wait. The rooms they are in are nasty and sticky. The bar code reader doesn't always work the first time (and sometimes doesn't work at all for some bottles) so you're constantly refeeding them into the machine.

They get a TON of use, so they go out of order frequently.

My grocery store just got brand new ones and they are better than the last ones they had still have problems.

Re: Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

#105

Post by kodablah »

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…

> Why do bottle bills tend to get high amounts of participation once enacted? Environmentalism is more popular than folks think. The bigger reason, though, might be that a culture of recycling has become popular.

Another reason is that the tax punishes those that don't. One wonders what the redemption rate might be if it was 50 cents a bottle? Or if you fined those that don't recycle them?

Re: Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

#106

Post by astura »

thoughtpalette wrote: post #56
SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In case people aren't from Michigan and don't understand how this works... Many stores have automated scanning machines. You feel UNCRUSHED bottles and cans in, a worm drive spins them around while scanning for the barcode. If that can was sold in MI, you get a .10 credit. You just stand there feeding them in at bigger stores. Many of the grocery stores devoted a portion of their cart storage / entry to these machine…

Moved away from MI, but I was not a fan of getting gross old soda on my hands when feeding them into the machines. The .10c is something I'm missing though.

That's why you buy a pack of latex gloves. I don't see anyone redeeming bottles/cans without wearing gloves.

Re: Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

#107

Post by TaylorAlexander »

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…

Fraud from one perspective, and makes the “percent” numbers unreliable perhaps, but it still means people are incentivized to recycle more.

Re: Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

#108

Post by ceejayoz »

evan_ wrote: post #100
ceejayoz wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You'd collect them from a recycling facility the next state over, which you also own or work with in some capacity (and where there's no deposit). Owning the redemption center means no one blinks an eye when you drive up with a truck full of bottles, especially as you've mixed them up with actual redemptions.

This is not hypothetical stuff. Large scale operations have already been caught:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/12/03/recycling-smu...

> Three suspects were arrested in a case that resulted in fraudulent payouts totaling $16.1 million over three years, the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery reported Monday.

> Authorities said the Bustillos' trucking operation existed entirely to smuggle cans and bottles into California.

Re: Oregon Bottle Deposit System Hits 90 Percent Redemption Rate

#110

Post by pinot »

giarc wrote: post #85
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.

Problem is there is no market for recycled glass. In my city, at one of the landfills there is a giant pile of glass bottles that just sits out all year.

You might be too far from a glass plant to make it worthwhile, but there's certainly a market for recycled glass. The O-I glass plant my company buys glass here in Oregon from uses 60% of 'cullet' - recycled glass, in their mix.
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