Nationally, we go through more than 30 billion non-carbonated drinks every year (Photo by Lester Graham)
Most states don’t have bottle deposit laws to encourage people to return their empties. Only eleven states do. Now, some are expanding their recycling programs to include bottled water. Sadie Babits reports the states know requiring a deposit for the bottles will keep them from ending up in landfills:
Transcript
Most states don’t have bottle deposit laws to encourage people to return their empties. Only eleven states do. Now, some are expanding their recycling programs to include bottled water. Sadie Babits reports the states know requiring a deposit for the bottles will keep them from ending up in landfills:
Every time Mary Nemmers buys a bottled beverage, she’s pays a five cent deposit at the register.
She wants to get that money back eventually. So she saves up her bottles and once a month brings them here to New Seasons Market in Portland, Oregon.
(sound of bottles being sorted)
Nemmers thinks this is a pretty convenient system. She gets to shop while a store employee sorts and hand counts her bottles.
Today Nemmers is getting nine dollars and change for her empties. While she’s glad to get that money back, she’s excited to learn that Oregon’s bottle deposit program has expanded.
“I just got some news that they’ll take back all the cans for deposits. Not just the ones that they sell. That started in January and that saves me an extra trip.”
That’s only part of the change. People in Oregon now also get five cents for every water and flavored water bottle they return to stores. That ends up being a lot of bottles.
Nationally, we go through more than 30 billion non-carbonated drinks every year. And that number is growing. Most of them end up in a landfill.
For Heather Schmidt, it makes sense to require a deposit for these bottles. She runs the sustainability program at New Seasons.
“We’re getting more back from our customers and that’s a good thing (chuckles). And we know that there’s quite a bit of water purchased, you know, and we’re selling it we want to take it back.”
Out of the eleven states that have bottle deposit programs, Oregon is one of the first to include bottles for water and other non-carbonated drinks.
Maine includes just about every beverage bottle. Connecticut adds bottled water to its program in April. New York and Massachusetts are debating similar expansions.
Mary Nemmers says it was about time that her state recognize that something needed to be done to make sure water bottles stay out of landfills.
“Because I do a lot of walking and I’ve seen lots and lots of water bottles thrown around and in trash cans. I assume that the expansion will reduce that and I’d like to see Oregon stay on the cutting edge of recycling.”
Not everyone is thrilled.
I spoke with the president of the Northwest Grocery Alliance who told me stores want recycling off their property.
A spokesman for the major food outlet Winco said the same thing. Stores say it’s messy to deal with “garbage” and stores have to dedicate staff time to recycling.
Heather Schmidt says at New Seasons Market, they don’t mind.
“Operationally, because we’ve increased the volume, it does mean we’ve had to add some staff labor to that to process but it’s something that we’re committed to.”
While most of the bottles are hand counted at New Seasons Market stores, large chain grocery stores use reverse vending machines.
I can stick a redeemable bottle into the machine. The machine checks to make sure it’s the right kind of bottle. Once it’s accepted, the bottle gets crushed and I get my five cents. Those crushed bottles, along with the plastic ones, end up here.
(sound of recycling plant)
We’re inside a glass and plastic bottle recycling plant. It’s a labyrinth of conveyer belts and equipment. The last drops of stale beer and old soda pop in the bottles make it smell sort of like your gym shoes meet the town dump.
Sadie: “Can we check out where the plastic bottles go?”
John: “Yes, We’ll go back this way.”
That’s John Anderson. He’s the President of the Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative.
“Now, the plastic, we have seen an increase, but we’re only two months into this expansion at this point and it’s a slower time of year for water and flavored water.”
We stop in front of three bales of recycled plastic that remind me of massive hay bales.
I can pick out the water bottles scrunched together with a lot of soda bottles. These plastic bales will be sold to manufacturers – mostly overseas – who will turn this plastic back into something useable.
Anderson says all of the glass though, stays local and gets turned back into beer bottles.
Bottle deposits work.
The states that have bottle deposit laws have dramatically high bottle recycling rates – as high as Michigan’s 97%.
But the U.S. average is below 40%. The rest of those bottles spend forever in a landfill.
For The Environment Report, I’m Sadie Babits.