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My closing statement read: "There is only one real effective and incentive method to encourage environmentally sound collecting of beverage one-way containers and it is deposit in combination with High-Tech R&D resulted Reverse Vending Machines!"

Redemption center a worthy test for updated Bottle Bill

Despite delays in finding an appropriate location for the facility, East County residents still will have first crack at testing a new way of recycling cans and bottles in Oregon.

As reported in The Outlook on Wednesday, a container redemption center – one that originally was to be sited in Gresham – will end up in Wood Village instead. The facility will be the first of up to 90 such centers in Oregon that eventually could replace the state’s outdated practice of requiring individual grocery stores to manage the unwieldy process of receiving used beverage containers and reimbursing customers for their deposits.

Back in 1971, when Oregon adopted its landmark Bottle Bill, grocery stores were the natural place to return these containers, which at the time were much less varied and voluminous than they are today. The Bottle Bill was immensely successful in getting litter off the roadsides and in nurturing a recycling ethic in Oregon that has persisted and grown through the years.

But while Oregonians have embraced recycling, they also are grabbing an ever-expanding array of beverages out of vending machines and off the shelves of grocery and convenience stores. This has required the larger grocery stores to build, staff and maintain their own recycling centers. The system works, to a point, but it also imposes upon a select group of businesses the burden and hassle of fulfilling a larger societal goal.

The grocery industry, along with beverage distributors, still would shoulder the redemption-center costs – in part with excess bottle deposits. The concept for these centers, as approved by the Oregon Legislature and administered by the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, is fairly straight-forward. Once the Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative has the center up and running on Northeast Halsey Street, the three nearest grocery stores won’t have to redeem deposits on cans and bottles any longer.

In this case, that means the Wood Village Fred Meyer, the Cherry Park Safeway and the Wood Village Wal-Mart can opt out of the messy empty-container business. Instead, customers will take their bottles and cans to the redemption center, where an employee will be on hand to assist. During off hours, customers who have established an account with the center can still make use of the facility.

Eventually, the grocery industry would like to see 90 redemption centers in the state, with each serving the customers of about three large stores. Oregon thus would fall in line with several other states that weren’t as quick to adopt a bottle bill, but arguably improved upon Oregon’s process for redemption.

We’re pleased to see that, even though the redemption center didn’t find a home in Gresham, it nonetheless will get its first Oregon test here in East County. In time, we hope this experiment will expand to the rest of East County and bring a landmark law of the 1970s – Oregon’s Bottle Bill – into alignment with the best recycling practices of today.