PORTLAND — People in Oregon lined up to turn in their used soda cans and glass bottles Saturday, the first day of a new refund that doubled the amount they could get to 10-cents per can.
Oregon was the first state to give 5-cent refunds for recycling used soda cans and glass bottles more than 45 years ago.
Now with other recycling options commonplace, the state is working to revamp the program by doubling that refund on bottled and canned water, soda, beer and malt beverages — regardless of what their labels say.
Oregon’s 1971 Bottle Bill has been replicated in nine other states and the U.S. territory of Guam. Michigan is the only other state with an across-the-board payout as high as 10 cents per bottle, although booze and other large bottles carry a 10-cent payout in California and 15 cents in Maine and Vermont.
The system was a big hit in its early years. But as curbside recycling and pickup services were brought on board two decades later — not to mention inflationary effects on the nickel’s value — the rates at which Oregonians cashed in their bottles and cans gradually tumbled from 90 percent averages to less than 70 percent of all bottle sales statewide in 2014 and 2015.
That decline triggered the new 10-cent rate — a provision lawmakers added in 2011.
The higher refund took effect Saturday. Long lines were expected at the 20 bottle redemption sites across the state, and the roughly 2,000 or so grocery stores that participate in the refund program braced for a bustling weekend.
Critics say the higher amount is bad policy during a time of crisis for Oregon’s upcoming budget, where jobs and taxes are on the line to help close a $1.6 billion deficit.
Oregonians cashed in slightly more than 1 billion bottles and cans in 2015, roughly two-thirds of total sales that year, according to a 2017 report to the Legislature by the state Liquor and Control Commission, which aids distributors in administering program operations.
That equates to almost $30 million in gross bottle refunds that Oregonians never redeemed, all of which stayed with local and national beverage distributors such as Pepsi and Pendleton Bottle Co., plus others who participate in the Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative.
Some of those funds help beverage distributors operate the program. It involves transporting recyclables to processing sites and reimbursing grocery stores, which don’t make a profit but are still required to accept empty containers and refund consumers.
