June 14, 2008
Task force debates Bottle Bill changes
SALEM — Last year, state lawmakers seized on what many of them deemed a no-brainer: modernize Oregon’s Bottle Bill law for a new generation that drinks its water from store-bought bottles.
But it’s turning out that much about updating the Bottle Bill is anything but easy.
The Legislature ended up limiting its expansion to include water bottles, starting next year — the first change since 1971, when Oregon began requiring a nickel deposit on soda and beer containers, which consumers got back if they returned them to a grocery store.
For other potential changes, the Legislature created a task force to make recommendations to the 2009 assembly.Those changes could include raising the per-container deposit from a nickel; including other bottles and cans, such as those for wine, juice and sports drinks; and addressing grocery stores’ longstanding complaints that they’re unfairly saddled with the mess of accepting returned containers covered by the Bottle Bill.
The nine-member Bottle Bill Task Force spent a half-day Friday hashing out draft recommendations for the first time.
Much of its debate focused on a proposed network of 90 redemption centers — places consumers could return their empties that aren’t in grocery stores. Unresolved is how quickly the centers would go up, and whether they would replace or be in addition to hundreds of sites already in grocery stores.
Task force members from the beverage and grocery industries argued against proceeding too quickly, saying there was too much uncertainty and doubt about how well the redemption centers would work. The recommended timeline calls for all 90 centers to be in operation by 2012. Rural communities would continue to use retail stores as return locations.
Member Eric Forrest, co-president of Willamette Beverage, a Pepsi-Cola bottler and distributor in Eugene, cited the cost, time and difficulty in locating properties on which to build such centers.
“It seems unlikely to me that you can, even if you went hell-bent, right off the bat get 90 redemption centers running,” he said. One proposal calls for the industries that make, distribute and sell beverages covered by the Bottle Bill to pay the cost of the redemption centers, which Joe Gilliam, president of the Northwest Grocery Association, estimated at $20 million over 10 years.
It would be important that redemption centers quickly replace grocery stores as return centers for consumers’ bottles and cans, Gilliam said. He said members of his trade association fear the Legislature will move ahead with the centers, while continuing the mandate that stores also handle returned containers — a role the industry has long tried to dump because of the costs of space and staff time involved.
Stores are not compensated for accepting bottles and cans and redeeming consumers’ nickel-per-container deposit. However, they do keep a portion of those deposits that go unclaimed when bottles and cans are not redeemed.
The task force’s Jerry Powell, editor and publisher of Resource Recycling magazine, said he saw no reason to go slow on the redemption centers. Many states have jumped ahead of Oregon since its pioneering Bottle Bill and now operate such centers. Powell, a Portland resident, said Oregon could learn from those states’ trial-and-error experiences.
In the end, the task force adopted a recommendation that the Legislature pursue a statewide system of industry-run centers, to be financed by unredeemed container deposits and businesses in the beverage trade.
Another issue, which the panel discussed but put off for further debate, involves increasing the deposit, which has stood at a nickel since the Bottle Bill’s adoption.
Task force member Suzanne Johannsen, former board chairwoman of Oregon Recyclers Association and a former Bend city councilor, said a nickel deposit was a real incentive to return empties back in the Bottle Bill’s early years.
“You could pick up bottles on the side of the road and fill up the tank of your car,” she said, recalling a time when a gallon of gas cost 35 cents — or seven empties. With $4-a-gallon gas, it would take 80 cans for that same gallon.
Forrest said he worries that raising the deposit to a dime would drive consumers away from soda products, especially in this period of rising grocery bills.
“I think it’s a really tough time to be throwing that at the consumers in the state of Oregon,” he said.
Others on the task force pointed out that the added deposit would be reclaimed in full by consumers when they return their bottles and cans.
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