Hands off the bottle bill
The lethal combination of decriminalizing hard drugs and normalizing street camping has really taken its toll on Oregon, and Portland in particular. It would be a shame if the casualties included the state's "bottle bill."
But it sounds as though there's a movement afoot for just that. "The junkies get their drug money by bringing bottles and cans back to Safeway!" "Everyone recycles nowadays anyway; there's no need for a bottle bill any more."
Consider where that noise is coming from. A lot of it is emanating from the big grocery retailers, who have always hated the Oregon bottle deposit rules and have been trying to figure out a way to get rid of them for well over 50 years. They're seizing on the fentanyl disaster as their golden opportunity, their ultimate sales pitch.
The fact of the matter is, the bottle bill is just fine, working as well as was intended and keeping tons of trash off the roads, out of the parks, and off the beaches and other public spaces we all use. If you think the roadside garbage situation in Portland is bad now, remember that it would be three times as bad if there weren't a 10-cent deposit on beverage containers.
It's always been part of the deal that homeless people would scoop up the containers and bring them in for the cash deposit. It's free trash pickup. There ought to be a 10-cent deposit on every fast food item's wrapper or container, too.
As for "everyone recycles now," come on. Everything you read makes clear that plastic doesn't really get recycled, even if you put it in the blue bin. It doesn't matter whether you have a bottle bill or not; the stuff is going to the landfill. But the question is whether you want to see it on the ground everywhere for a few years first. The bottle bill makes sure that you don't.
And yes, some drug addicts get the cash for their fix by returning bottles and cans. But you know what? They're going to get the cash for their fix any way they can. Take away their bottle money, and it's just one more reason to break into your car.
Over the years, the state has developed a well-designed program in which people can bag their returnables at home and drop them down chutes located all over town, getting an electronic credit within a few days. The downside is that all the normal Joes and Janes use that system, leaving the central "redemption centers" for the desperate. Now, I'll admit, those places get pretty gross. And they don't attract a particularly attractive slice of society. But the answer is to spend more money keeping the places safe and clean. Hire security. Hire cleaners. And set up more facilities, so that no one location has to be a magnet for every downtrodden person for miles around. There's plenty of money.
If the grocers hate the law so much, they ought to go to the bobbleheads in the legislature and pry some of the profit from the operation away from the beer and wine distrubutors, who as I understand it, get to keep all the dimes that don't get claimed. In the meantime, the Krogers and the Albertsons need to back off from stirring up the population to get rid of a perfectly good system.
Yes, Virginia, it's a shame that many poor people spend their scarce dollars on drugs. But abandoning a perfectly good litter prevention system is not the answer. It's not even an answer.
Too many containers get grouped into the bill, and most of them just go to the landfill anyway. Plus the deposit is too high and stores have limits on how many you can return at any time. No limits on purchases though.
ReplyDeleteGone are the days of refillable Tab bottles. People have been sufficiently trained to recycle, and if they want to trash them that’s on them.
Plastic doesn’t get recycled, honestly. It’s a fantasy. The deposit affects only the litter aspect. But the litter aspect is really, really important.
DeleteThe litter aspect is due more to change in attitudes than the actual deposits. Like so many of Oregon "success" stories such land use planning, the bottle bill didn't fix what it was supposed to, has outlived its usefulness, and is unlikely to go away now that certain people are benefiting from it.
DeleteNo, it hasn't outlived its usefulness. It keeps tons of litter off the roads. Please wake up.
DeleteNo bottle bill here in SW Washington and roads aren’t covered in trash. This holds true in Idaho, Montana and other non-redemption states.
DeleteBecause the folks in Washington take their cans and bottles and redeem them in Oregon.
DeleteAnd because if you get caught dumping trash in Washington and Idaho, there will be consequences. In Oregon, not so. The question for Oregon is whether you want bottles and cans on top of the already existing crap piles everywhere.
DeleteWhat ‘SW Washington’ alluded to is what I was trying to point out in the original post. Everyone has recycle containers available at home, so just wash and stick in there. And if Metro or whoever wants to recycle the containers, well that is on them.
DeleteI remember doing paper drives and/or just collecting newspapers back in the day and bundling with twine to trade in for cash. Obviously there are items worth recycling (paper & tin), but most end up in the dump. Why keep an obvious charade going?
Because many people are pigs who throw trash on the ground and walk (or drive) away. With the bottle bill, homeless people pick up some of that trash and turn it in for money. Sometimes I wonder if I am speaking the English language.
DeleteYeah but you are forcing responsible people to be held hostage to a dime a container deposit. When most of us are well-versed in recycling and don’t want to deal with the hassle of bagging them and taking them piecemeal in for a refund.
DeleteI literally had 4 or 5 years worth of bags in my garage, and it got so bad that I basically gave them away. It is a hassle that in most cases is unnecessary.
Yeah, bottle deposit is fine.
ReplyDeleteAlmost wish it was expanded to canned wine/the wine lobby & hit the alcohol lobby moreso?
There are ways to return stuff for average people that aren’t too bad if you know where to look.
Separating out the plastics is still worthwhile, even if we can’t (as of yet) ‘recycle’ it, it’s still better than mixing it all together in the land fill.
They heat/remix & burn it too?
It’s funny talking to boomers, as while I fully realize that people used to just pitch their garbage off a cliff, drive their 3-5 year old car into a lake & rivers caught fire, their parents often smoked in the car with them (backwards facing seat & windows mostly up for extra punishment) (remember those more innocent days as late as the early 90s when we all worried about second hand smoke & a little about acid rain?…don’t hear much about those these days) when they were growing up, & there has been progress on that snd the bottle bill types of environmental /toxic stuff in scenic, public health, real estate scam & touristy sorts or ways.
I always thought it was funny that the states rights segregationists, sunbelt/Orange County & Hollywood Reaganites got together for CARB (California air resources board), largely to better sell shoddy post WW2 awful land & water use real estate scam car-centric suburbia housing tracts…hard to scam someone into buying a house in sprawling Hell.A If you can’t see thru the smog for a view or breathe by 1968?
Typical boomer-bashing post. Are you really unaware that Boomers started the recycling programs in the 1970's? And even before that mist people didn't drive their cars into rivers to get rid of them, except in places like Kentucky.
DeleteNope, the bottle bill is not needed any longer. It’s antiquated and a waste of time and resources. It causes major livability and criminal issues. Recycling is available everywhere. If you travel to places without a deposit, there isn’t more litter. It’s time to ditch the bottle bill.
ReplyDelete"Nope" yourself. You're not convincing me. Anywhere there is no deposit, there is litter in the form of discarded beer, soda, and water containers. In Oregon, there is virtually none. That is why we, like many other states, have a deposit law. You can fix livability problems around the redemption centers. You can't fix the fact that most of the people who have moved to Portland in the last 25 years are pigs who throw garbage out the window at will. Take away the deposit, and you will increase the trash problem considerably.
DeleteAnd if you think the stuff you put in the blue bin all gets recycled, or even that most of it does, you are dreaming. There's a reason why they never show you what really happens once the gabage trucks leave your block.
The bottle return center in Delta park has made the area around it a business desert.
DeleteNow they want it moved to Lombard next to the Grocery outlet in St Johns.
Occasionally go to Lowe’s, near the Delta Park bottle drop. It’s understandable why most of the businesses located near there are suffering. Some of the people using that bottle drop are really scary.
DeleteAnd a guy was shot dead there by a dubious security guard not too long ago. The place needs better security. As I say, there's plenty of money for it.
DeleteIncreased security won’t change my feelings about being safe around that crowd
DeleteI stopped going to the "redemption centers" and use the green bags instead. It's just me and a nice, clean, secure hatch I put them through at Whole Foods.
DeleteI'm not sure anyone posting here has seen a true Portland homeless clan in action, but here's the scam: 1) Go to grocery store of choice and purchase as many flats of bottled water as you can using your food stamps. 2) Exit the store and post up at the nearest curb. 3) Dump the water out of the bottles (while tossing the caps). 4) "Return" the bottles to the the bottle refund machine. 5) Buy alcohol with your chit. 6) Go to next store and repeat. This is happening all over town and it is an example of the Bottle Bill creating more plastic waste, not less (though admittedly it is not tossed along the roadside of your favorite Sunday drive).
ReplyDeleteJust saw this yesterday at the Safeway in the Pearl. A homeless guy carrying a case of water out the door. On the one hand, I can see the argument of those who think this system is making fentanyl use easier than it need be. Every trash day at least one homeless person comes through the neighborhood and takes cans from our recycling bins to make money from them. However, I am also concerned about the unintended consequences of ending the program. Now that Portland has become a Mecca for drug users around the country, who know that an easy way to feed the habit is by collecting cans, I am sure that without the redemption program we will see an increase in crime to help feed our transients’ habits. Maybe we should work harder at making Portland less attractive to druggies before we end this program? That’s really the problem that needs to be fixed and that’s going to take serious policing and prosecution, something we lack at the moment.
DeleteNot only should the bottle bill be retained, but for the same reasons (litter, and materials recovery — highly effective with aluminum, which is a major environmental benefit as aluminum smelting is a huge energy hog and recycling it uses vastly less energy) it should be expanded to cover all consumer disposable batteries (AA, AAA, C, D, 9v) — 25 cents per disposable. You find these thrown everywhere, and they really should be recycled. Especially since there are terrific rechargeable alternatives. The batteries are not as visible as bottles and cans, but they are bad news, and should be subject to a deposit and recovery effort just like bottles and cans.
ReplyDeleteI see trash all over the street and sidewalk because bums are looking for returnable cans/bottles and they dump out the trash cans. I still think we need some form of return policy, but we should be only allowing cans. Plastic gets dumped in landfills (or worse) and glass is very expensive to reprocess.
ReplyDeleteIt is unlikely that the drug crisis is going to end with arrests as it has gotten way out of control. That is why I still think we should establish Opium Dens where people can get high. If they use on the streets, go to jail. I know most addicts want a huge high because they are so far gone, but if that is a way to stay out of jail, they will adjust. And now we can find out who's who and get them help if they seek it. Probably an Opium pipe dream, but a less crazy idea then creating really expensive (developer cough, cough) housing where they are free to OD and trash the place.
Until they got caught, they tried to fast track the zoning change to move the bottle drop to Lombard across from the Grocery Outlet. And hide the sale of the old Dollar Store.
ReplyDelete"Hire security. Hire cleaners." Yeah, there's literally money for that with the bottle returns. We've got great case studies on hiring homeless people and transforming them into municipal cleaners. I think EVERYONE would be OK if there was 5 cleaners on staff who were formerly homeless per location keeping it squeaky clean and orderly.
ReplyDeleteThis isn't a money problem, nor is it a creativity problem, but it seems to be that a lot of the political class really appreciates the status quo, no matter how destructive it obviously is for our society, no matter how many people are victimized.
Obvious solutions to problems are met with batshit stupid objections from very corrupt political interests.
Recycling Cooperative’s BottleDrop operations manager is Clare Schmidt — wife of DA Mike Schmidt.
DeleteThe family seems to enjoy the destruction of law and order.