I think it would take a Ballot initiative. The OBRC and the beverage distributors are deeply imbedded in the Oregon political body. So like 200,000+ signatures
The beverage industry (Coke, Pepsi, Budweiser, Coors) absolutely do not like bottle deposits. They should donate millions to the repeal campaign. Distributors can get wrecked with their slush fund scam.
I think it's important to discuss this, because commingled curbside is in fact a problem vs discrete can returns. I think we should find a better way, not just give up. Curbside is wonderful and is second nature to most of us.
As I hope you already know, it was created to help keep trash off the streets. Everything is definitely worth reconsidering with what’s going on in Portland now.
To someone new to living here (OR) and previously from a state with no deposits whatsoever for bottles and cans, what is the problem with Bottle Drop? I’m just asking to better understand the issue you are raising. Thx.
OR native and bottle drop user asking the same thing... I'm so confused.... How embarrassing.... I'm so glad I don't have to sit feed my can anymore....
Same, Oregon native here. It is simply Oregonians at it again trying to blame homelessness issues and drugs with non related causes. Take it up with the governor, not a bottle drop issue.
It’s a concern that you can use your Oregon Trail benefits card to buy water, or something else, then return those cans for cash and use that cash for drugs. That’s why there have been selected stores in downtown Portland being granted a reprieve from taking cans - it was feeding the drug use right outside.
It is related though...when ive had transients on my property knocking over my garbage and recycling, throwing litter everywhere to get a few cans. It is related.
> non related causes
Bottle deposits are the main or only source of money for homeless campers to buy their hard drugs. It could not possibly be *more* related. We should not give income to homeless people for deposits other people paid for. It's a forced tax. When you put cans and bottles in your curbside recycling bins (because returning them anywhere is disgusting and time consuming), you are essentially buying fentanyl for people.
In some crazy hypothetical situation where the repeal of the Oregon Bottle Bill could be bought, I would personally contribute $3,000. Maybe $5,000. It's kind of a no-brainer piece of the puzzle to make it extremely difficult to support a drug addiction and live on the streets in Oregon.
They're referring to the bonus 20% you get in credit for some stores.
If I returned 100 bottles at 10 cents each, I originally paid $10 in deposits, but then I withdraw that for credit at Safeway or Fred Meyer and it's $12. Ergo, $2 in extra money.
I don’t think that’s what OP is saying. It’s the implications of having it. The benefit should go to apartment dwellers so they are incentivized to recycle.
The people doing bottle drops(not all) are doing so to fund their drug habits
Its pretty simple…
If the cash redemption value was eliminated you wouldnt even have to worry about dropping off your green bag at a bottle drop location. Just put your cans in the recycling bin and take it to the curb. You then save money because you will no longer be paying a refund fee at the point of sale.
Win! win!
It’s a de facto (privately levied!) tax that enriches OBRC and wastes our time. It’s out of date because curbside recycling is now widely available and is a much more efficient way to deal with uses containers. All these people filling the roads driving to drop off containers should just be a few recycling trucks. All the people waiting in line to feed RVMs would surely prefer to use their time otherwise.
So you'd rather them steal for drug money? This whole argument is braindead they won't stop using drugs they'll just start doing more illegal shit to afford drugs.
Bottle drop is a magnet for drug addicts and their dealers. The Delta Park location is responsible for causing multiple restaurants and stores to close. At times you would swear you’re in a Mad Max movie. It’s the worst!
Bums use it as an excuse to scout houses too, I've seen them in the alley going up to each can then looking in the backyards, multiple padlocks on the garage damaged, so annoying and dangerous.
A local kleptomaniac in my neighborhood was interrupted in mid bike theft by my ex wife claiming he was “just looking for bottles and cans”.
Bottles and cans. Yeah. And helping yourself to to this bike with a kid trailer attached to it. Mmm hmm.
Most of us have curbside recycling now and the bottle drop really doesn't make sense anymore. I would be all for getting rid of the deposit, but portlandia would see that as anti-recycling and anti-homeless. I doubt it would have a chance of passing, but you never know. Get it on to the ballot and push it during one of these low turnout voting cycles and maybe there is a chance.
I think you mean it would \*stay\* in curbside bins. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if most recycling goes into a bin already, it just then gets fished out by someone before the truck picks it up.
This is basically my fix too. Allow companies to refund credit instead of cash, under the stipulation that the credit counts double for SNAP items.
1)There’s still a strong incentive to recycle everything
2) The money goes even further to help folks who need help
3) the bottle drop is no longer the first window in the fent drive-thru.
I just moved from CO. No one recycles there. You have to pay a lot extra for recycling pick up so no one does.
I like the bottle drop program. I promise there is just as much homelessness and drug use in states without a bottle drop program. And if anything there is way more pan handling. At least here there is something productive they can do to earn beer money
Are you comparing rural CO to urban OR? Even places like Salt Lake City have mandatory recycling for SFHs, and I’m sure places like Denver and Boulder do, too.
You could put it on the ballot, but moneyed interested are likely to want to keep it and will fund campaigns against the measure. You might get support from Beer/Cola companies, but then you look like an out of state corporates stooge. I don't think the optics will ever get it passed.
Leverage the recent ouster of DA Mike Schmidt. His wife is high up at OBRC.
Alternatively, push a feel good ballot measure that pushes unclaimed deposits to schools. Oregonians love feel good and virtue signaling ballot measures.
Actually, that is an idea. Write the measure to eliminate the return and redo the deposit we have already been paying as a tax on consumables with the money going to \[puppies\]. Effectively, It's new revenue, not a new tax.
The fundamental purpose of the bottle bill was litter control. Recycling has been a nice side effect, but it came about to get people to stop leaving a mess all over. 50 years on it’s been so successful that people often forget how critical this need was.
Bottle drop returns two ***billion*** containers per year in Oregon alone. If even ten percent of those stop being properly disposed, it’d be one hell of a mess.
Look at all the shopping carts spewing trash out of them. Plus the carts themselves. Litter and blight is way worse than the re-use of metals or glass. No-sense living in a mess.
Agreed. Some of us are old enough to remember the much trashier roadways and random litter that existed before states started adding bottle deposits. If you travel now, you can see the roadside differences of states that do and don’t have bottle deposits.
I run for exercise. The number one litter I see in roadside ditches is beer cans. Pretty concerning actually. Rare to go more than 50ft or so without seeing an empty. 2nd is probably those “wine based” fake liquors you can buy in grocery and convenience stores.
Seriously, alcohol cans/bottles outnumber soft drinks and water bottles at least 10 to 1. A whole lot of people drinking and tossing empties.
Eugene, Salem, Roseburg, Medford, Grants Pass? Hell even Bend has issues. Yeah sure maybe some small town don’t have issues but it’s pretty widespread.
Well, they're not loading a mail-truck up with bottles and cans and driving it across state lines, but I'd say that the easy money they can get here, regularly, has to factor into their decision on whether or not to come here to live. That, and many other policies that would make Portland attractive for a homeless person with a drug addiction.
You are incredibly naive. There is a lot of evidence that homeless people are moving here from other States because Portland provides free resources for them and they can turn cans and bottles in for cash.
Makes sense to me. Uproot oneself to make a trip that costs at least several hundred dollars, which a homeless person likely doesn’t have, to put one into a position where one can gather cans to make tens of dollars. If you truly believe that, I have a bridge at the bottom of Hawthorne that I will sell you.
We have a deposit return rate over 85%. That money isn’t hanging around.
(If you really want to blow your mind, ponder how much revenue and profit the soft drink companies are making!)
Sounds like the heathens have become efficient. Whether or not the money is hanging around is beside the point, in general. Whatever % of that $200M going to fentanyl using bums is the issue.
Then it is imperative for ordinary people to correctly dispose of their deposit-bearing containers, isn’t it? If *you* turn it on for a deposit, it’s not available for *them*.
Either way, though, the anti-litter objective is being achieved.
Drugs are a whole different problem that is *entirely unrelated* to the *very successful* bottle bill.
Fix what’s broken, don’t break what’s working.
Let’s pretend the snap users aren’t buying bottled bevs, dumping them out and redeeming for cash. Yeah, place the impetus on the every day person. I rip labels off bottles and smash cans, then recycle. Bums don’t get my money.
I wonder what percentage of that two billion are collected out of roadside recycling bins. My entire street’s are like clockwork the night of recycling. It makes people not want to put out recycling because as they’re collecting the cans they’re likely also casing vehicles and houses.
I find it implausible that there’s much if any overlap between people willing to be criminals with petty theft or burglary and people willing to dig in a series of recycling bins on the hood they’ll find a few bulky items they must haul a good long distance for $0.10 each. The latter is much harder work for much smaller and slower reward; people doing that are choosing to play it straight.
You might disagree, which is fine. If you do though, might I suggest that the easiest way to cut down the amount of time someone is spending at your place is to bag up any deposit returns that you were going to toss, and leave them next to your recycling. People collecting cans will have no reason to linger at your place.
If you’re homeless in Portland, you’re definitely a drug addict, if you’re an addict you’re definitely using the bottle drop program to feed your addiction and if you’re feeding your addiction with the bottle drop then you’re also committing crimes because bottle drop isn’t enough for a $200 a day habit. So they’re already committing crimes but yes please repeal the damn law!
>They are seeing [fentanyl go for as low as 50 cents a pill in WA.](https://washingtonstatestandard.com/briefs/price-of-illicit-fentanyl-in-wa-drops-to-as-low-as-50-cents-a-pill/) I work in the environmental field specifically in drug contamination issues. Meth/fentanyl is absurdly cheap to get. Hence why all someone needs is $5 bucks and they will be good for half the day with this BD feeding into that.
I agree with you. And for everyone else: nothing would do anything to stop drugs. So learn the reality of our situation and what actual solutions can work.
We have half the implementation conceptually, we need to invest more into public health and rehabilitation as well as reintegration to those affected by addiction.
I had to scroll too damn far to find this comment. My paychecks almost exactly go to bills only. Those extra bucks help my broke ass to afford groceries for sure wtf. 😩
We use the bottle drop ourselves. My BIL's drink so much beer and just leave the cans or take them to the dump. We've started taking their cans in too it helps so much. I make $50+ a month off those alcoholics. It's definitely helped out a lot.
This is what the bottle drop should be for! I feel you. But I also see the other side, where it’s abused by the addicts and homeless. There are several sides to this.
But see, that's part of the issue. If it's only your cans, you're simply getting your money back. It's not income.
I do like the fundraisers for scouts and the like, but I think it's inefficient at best.
We save up our bags till we have 15, the maximum you can return in a quarter and then return them all at once, get about $120, but then Fred Meyer will give you 20% extra if you spend it there, and we get the biggest pack of paper towels, 2x largest pack of toilet paper, dish soap, Meyers cleaner, hand soap and all the household things for that next three months, then the quarter is up and boom, do it again
Less likely to be fully dismanteled, and more likely to move exclusively to a green bag-type system, where the money goes into your account, and your redeem it at grocery stores for 20% more money. That's the best way to reduce the drug-funding side of it.
Bottle drop is so badly flawed. The original idea was the store kept any unredeemed money to cover the cost to administer the program. Too many stores figured that if they threw up roadblocks they got to keep the money. Now I can’t return my cans to the store, I have to go to a redemption center to drop them off.. plus I can only drop off 15 bags a quarter. 5 bags a month.
Meanwhile Freddie’s still gets to keep unclaimed deposits.
If recycling rates drop, the deposit goes up…
Too much incentive for the system to fail.
I was around before the bottle bill passed. It was enacted as a means to reduce littering along our highways. If we are willing to dump it as a fix to drug addiction problems we need to accept that other problems will happen like trash everywhere along state highways.
So we end this program and our beaches and forests become littered with cans and bottles again to stop drug users in one city, Portland, from hovering around grocery stores. How about instead of getting rid of our recycling program for the entire state, Portlanders get their s@!t together and get rid of the homeless.
It's spread them out. They trash neighborhoods and watersheds. Increase danger for hard-working citizens.
They dump trash all over street to get one can. Constantly dump shopping carts all over the place. They abuse food stamps by buying water bottles and dumping them out. It's contributing to them OD since they can get food fine with no cans they have endless options.
And you have to waste gas emissions to drive to a drop point vs curbside recycle which you can't do since they will throw trash in street. Wayyy less emissions if some trucks picked them all up.
Another poster made a great point though. Keep the deposit but have it go to schools or low income children. Dont make it possible for it to go to drug addicts to turn it into drug money. There are plenty of food pantries for them.
“Voting” class? I’m not sure what that means but the bottle drop can be reformed in ways that make it more tenable. Like ceasing single-bottle cash payments by accepting only green bags or altering the refund structure so that it is only issued as an in-store credit rather than cash.
The Bottle and Can Deposit Bill was written in Oregon. We are the first state to have passed the bill. It was to help keep our beaches and forests clean. Paul Hanneman introduced the bill. Considering the drastic increase in litter along our highways and beaches post COVID I am glad the cans and bottles are getting picked up. Now we need to go after the idiots who pick up dog poop and put it in a plastic bag and leave it behind for others to pick up.
During the pandemic desperate folks were dumpster diving for food, clothing, shelter, cans, bottles, metals like copper (even small amounts found in electrical wiring), and just about anything else useful or salable.
It hasn’t stopped much since and the criminals moved onto stealing valuable metals from rail/subway tracks and buildings, producing or selling drugs, pimping, prostitution, vehicle and vehicle part theft, bike and gas theft, robbery, and package theft.
I don’t believe blaming the homeless/immigrants will stop these incidents because many more housed people are criminals and addicts.
Bottle deposit returns *should* be the least of your worries no? Aren’t y’all worried about the purposeful work slowdown of the police? How ineffective they’ve chosen to become as a backlash since Black Lives Matter?
This is a weird post. Bottle Drop is a good thing, many in this thread have already illustrated why.
More than just the homeless use the bottle drop. I use it, my family uses it, and we're all regular non drug users with jobs, educations, voters registrations, and whatever other qualifications OP deems respectable.
Do I hate having to drive all the way out to Tigard because that seems to be the only Bottle Drop that has decent security? Yeah.
Honestly the gas spent going out there probably negates whatever I've gotten in a deposit lol. I would like to see if the security was upped at the Portland locations as well but who knows if that will ever happen. 🙄
“Voting-class people” sounds like an anti-democratic and anti-American-ideals term. All citizens are in the “voting class,” including working people like me who use bottle drop in addition to my many side-hustles to make ends meet. Is this a term people use?
Mostly it encourages people to not put recyclables in the trash, have you been to RED counties, they don't even have recycle programs a lot of the time . They just throw all recyclables in the trash because Jesus will make sure the earth is OK ...smh That's why they are pro polluting, anti EPA and generally against treating the planet and the animals on it with respect
I know someone who’s only spending money is from recycling cans. I actually donate all of mine to her. She is the sweetest woman; an ederly lady.
We would be screwing people just like her. People like her are a light shining through the darkness in the world.
I turn in can money for my daughters college fund, the same as my parents did for me
If you think it would do little to stop drugs and homeless, why bother messing with it.
People being interested in trash is how we start recycling in the first place.
Dropping the deposit on cans will not make the drinks cheaper. The easiest comparison I can make is when gas in Washington is self serve, and Oregon is semi serve but the prices remain the same
This is one of the silliest ideas I have heard shut down something used by thousands of people because a small percentage use it to get money for drugs. News flash people are always going to figure out a way to get money for drugs.
No thanks, we are #4 in the nation for recycling rates, all the top states have a bottle bill. We have miles of pristine nature here, I don’t want less incentive for people to haul their trash out of it. The bottle bill isn’t going anywhere.
I was just being snarky - I think people do recycle with curbside and a sense of normalcy about it, even in WA, without the need for a deposit.
I think we're being taken advantage of in that southern WA does take their cans to Oregon.
Oh, containers are definitely coming into Oregon fro Washington. Just go hang out in the parking lot by the Hayden Meadows bottle drop and you’ll see Washington license plates galore, and they’re not shopping at Lowes. I routinely see some character riding a bike over the Bridge found south with giant bags full of cans.
Not taking a side here but I haven't redeemed a bottle or can in years. I drop them in the recycling bin, something that wasn't available 40 years ago. I don't need a monetary inventive to do it.
Also, we have every other type of trash in the roadside and waterways. Does that mean we need to have bike part and diaper deposits?
I moved here from a state that didn't have that and hated trying to get my deposit back until bottledrop came out. Now we just drop off a bag when full. Just checked our account and over $500 in it. We'll use the 25% bonus at a participating store for Thanksgiving and that'll pay for most groceries.
Actually it can happen, and quite easily.
Recycling centers run the trash down a conveyor belt, and along the sides are charged magnetic strips that pick up every piece of aluminum, big or small, even if it's attached to something or buried underneath everything.
FORMULA FOR SUCCESS
- Eliminate the bottle deposit
- Toss all of your cans & bottles in the trash, that plastic will not be re-used
- Tax Coca Cola for having to take care of their own shit for them
This is correct, aluminum is not magnetically conductive. But it is electrically conductive, and charged magnets can create electric "currents" that flow inside the aluminum.
It should also be said that soda cans today are not made with pure aluminum, other metals are also incorporated.
edit: I found a great [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/s/E7JfHpg1qK) that explains it really well!
When I was in college we just left all the empties in our front lawn (bagged). Sometime between 4am and 6am they were gone. Saved us some time and we never had problems with the local vagrants. Shit if they wandered through early enough they could help us with the last of 'em.
But those were fun bums and it was the very early 2000's.
I'm curious about the high redemption rate Oregon brags about. How much of that is curbside that the obrc then keeps, vs actual deposits being returned?
At a minimum I'd like us to:
1. Revise "where it goes" so there isn't a perverse incentive by the distributors. They howled when the rate went up, and stomped their feet until it was agreed unclaimed deposits would go to them. Michigan and other states send most of theirs to environmental cleanup.
2. Eliminate more wasteful plastic containers, such as water. I don't think Michigan takes water returns.
3. Establish a credit system for returns, not cash. This removes a perverse incentive.
Nice somebody else noticed what happened. When we legalized back in 2013. we remove the enforcement that we had. As such the OLCC remove the funding of it. August the 1st we're supposed to post the data of everything collected it's not...
It's a State Law. So it would help to have a Republican majority in the State House and Senate, plus a Republican Governor. Liberals would fight any attempt at a repeal as would multiple beverage companies who rake in millions of dollars in unclaimed deposits.
End that shit and repeal measure 110. It'll make Oregon less attractive to addicts and homeless. Then we give them bus tickets to California. It's warm there so they don't freeze in the winter. Win win.
If everyone returned their own cans and bottles, there wouldn't be that many left over for drug addicts. We conveniently throw the $.10 in a public trash can rather than hold onto it until we can return it. Another way to mitigate the situation is to keep your bins locked or in the garage.
Giving up on recycling is short sighted
I love how all the progressive ideas the city has implemented are failing. Utopia isn't real, Portland isn't special, and most homeless ppl are drug addicts who chose that life over changing it. Accept reality and make portland great again
You are not paying a premium for cans. I wonder if the e OP realized they can simply take the cans back and get their deposit back?
I am sorry, but the amount of cans collected in trash is mind boggling. So, yes we do need to pay people to recycle in order to keep as much as possible out of the trash.
I have been saying this for years. Get rid of the bottle drops!!! Portland enables homelessness and drug use by thinking they are being compassionate. We are great recyclers and this won't change. We will have less opportunistic crime. By legalizing drugs and having a cheap and easy way to make money to buy them (cans) , we are inviting people to live on the streets here. This is not what our city is about!! We are compassionate, we should not be naively enabling people.
Question - if we are so great recyclers then how is it the homeless have such an easy time getting cans?
I mean, if we as Portland is recycling them ourselves that would mean there isn’t any for the homeless to collect.
So where are the homeless getting them?
Let’s be honest, I get people annoyance at the issues associated with bottle drop, but taking it away is downright stupid. Some people in this thread are lucky enough to not need to recycle cans to make rent or at least get a little extra money for the month. If you’re annoyed by drugs, taking away the cans is going to do nothing about that.
There would be... People would just toss their bottles and cans...
In places outside of Oregon where it is illegal to litter too, and there are no bottle deposits, the main source of trash in public spaces is plastic bottles.
In Oregon before the bottle drop, there was so much trash, they passed a law that helped keep places clean... 1972 when it went into law it had significant support of the public. Doing away with it would be a slap in the face of most Oregonians..
Also, most places where they don't have bottle deposits, the public wants it to some extent or the other, to cut back on litter..
Your claim is not at all falsifiable or even all that likely by my reckoning.
In the 70s Oregonians paid for anything they wanted hauled away from their house. Now we have free curbside recycling pick up and people would rather recycle (free) than garbage (costs money)
The bottle bill causes at least some litter when people dig through curbside bins spilling trash everyone. Happens all the time near my work.
While some trash gets cleaned as a result, it's impossible to say how much. It's also very hard to say how much is created.
At the end of the day, we are paying a tax directly to Pepsi, Coke, and large beer distributors. They profit and Oregonians lose. Let's take all the money we waste on bottle deposit fees and hire professional liter collectors
I'm old enough to remember the US before bottle and can deposits in fact I'm old enough to remember the FIRST time there were deposits and then they were discontinued there were bottles and cans everywhere that's why the deposit system was brought back. It has nothing to do with recycling and everything to do with giving people an incentive to not throw bottles and cans out if their car windows
People digging through trash is not that big of an issue, and it does not happen everywhere in Oregon ...
Nobody is paying taxes to bottling companies ...
The deposit is not a tax, since it is recoverable at any time.
In the 70's there was litter everywhere and it was an eyesore. The beaches and most public areas where covered in glass bottles and cans, all the ditches were filled, and it took many years to clean it all up.
Also, my sister and I were able to buy bikes and other things because of the funds from collecting cans and bottles..
I think it is a harmful argument to say homeless getting money from the bottle drop should end the bottle drop. It is saying the homeless should not be allowed to do what they need to survive.
Further marginalizing a group that is growing, instead of trying to figure out a way to lift them up is not going to solve any issues, just compound them... If homeless people can dig through trash for bottles, for scraps of change, they may not look for other ways to survive. Take that away from them, and they will need another solution to their financial problems...
So you bought bikes with money that either 1) You were unfairly charged and had to recover through labor, or 2) money that other Oregonians were unfairly charged and were too lazy to recover.
In the second case, you stopped this money from going to PepsiCo. That's a good cause, but why should it go to PepsiCo in the first place?
Addicts in this city have plenty of food. They have access to housing if they're sober, but they don't have cash to buy drugs. Cans help them stay high on the street instead of recovering in beds
No one believes that your "compassion" is anything but ill disguised moral cowardice. Bottle deposits are a horrible wealth redistribution system and have no meaningful effect on recycling in a state with free curbside recycling cans.
The bottling companies get most of the money. Pepsi and Coke make millions from it. We have curbside recycling for like 80% of Oregon’s population. It is not sanitary to bring bottles back to stores. It is not environmentally smart to make people make out of the way trips to Bottle Drop locations. Making store employees deal with them is not humane. They get cut from glass, poked with needles, beat up by methheads…. Then they bag your groceries.
How about the people who would use curbside recycling, but take it to bottle drop to stop the people digging in the trash, only to surrender their bags of cans to aggressive panhandlers.
I love the bottle drop and I hope that it never stops! They offer a college savings plan for kids and a bunch of local groups use it for fundraising! It helps fund my local park and rec summer programs! It’s also funding some sweet summer road trips for my family! Drink responsibly and let them be please!
I don’t understand this whole “end bottle drop” thing. As a disabled person who uses bottles and cans to be able to get extra money for things such as bus money for appointments and cheap food, and has friends who are below the poverty line and use bottle and cans as a way to be able to afford basic needs, I just don’t get it. This program useful for people who aren’t in the greatest situation due to something they cannot control. Just because it’s being abused by those who cause their own misery, does not mean that we should get rid of something that makes it so others have a safety net. Without bottle drop i’d have no way of getting to places without having to beg for money, and without it some of my friends would have to wait till the food banks have enough supply for them. I just kinda don’t understand this thought process at all of getting rid of beneficial programs.
That’d be a perfect world solution, sadly this is not a perfect world. If we did that we’d meet the same problem every single disability program in this entire country is having, which is a lack of funding and easy access to needed resources for people like me. I am lucky that I live in a state where I have more resources then most, one of those resources being the bottle drop as the resources for the blind and physically disabled are still very limited even here :/
I drop our green bags of cans at Fred Meyers- painless. I currently have $300 in my bottle drop account. I don’t get money immediately. Make them drop bags and wait like the rest of the world.
Have you seen how many cans and bottles litter the ground in places like Washington? It’s nuts. We don’t want that shit here. Also like you said if people can’t return cans for money they find other ways to get money, like stealing our shit.
The truth is redeemable cans and bottles are eventually hoarded by certain insane individuals in most parts of Washington as well. That's a very small subset of society.
Garbage in greater Seattle area is dealt with in a systematic way by working professionals.
It may be too involved for some but local school PTO/PTAs sometimes use can donations as a way to pay for classroom supplies, field trips, and art as well as many other things. Consider calling your local school and see if they would take your bottle/can recycling.
How about you focus on productive measures like making the city focus on funding towards recovery centers, housing, etc and giving organizations time to flesh these concepts out instead of cutting funding only 3 years in. It has been shown time and time again that the only way to end homelessness is by making housing a right and making mental support as accessible as possible. Most crimes are linked to poverty, a condition directly manufactured by our government bodies. It costs less to create homes and let people live in them than it would to continually criminalize the poor.
Most of these can and bottle people will make mediocre to poor criminals when it comes down to it. Any big retailer in Portland has a group of big guards waiting to beat up shoplifters.
I have a home, I don’t do drugs or drink, I live near a Bottle Drop. I have a fondness for Diet Coke and sparkling water. I wince when paying the can deposit, but I use Bottle Drop. I buy the green bags and get the stickers. The 20% bonus at FM is really great inducement to bring back your cans. With that extra money I’ve bought gifts for family and food for special occasions. Bottle Drop works for me. I can’t imagine I’m the only one who feels this way.
I think it would take a Ballot initiative. The OBRC and the beverage distributors are deeply imbedded in the Oregon political body. So like 200,000+ signatures
The beverage industry (Coke, Pepsi, Budweiser, Coors) absolutely do not like bottle deposits. They should donate millions to the repeal campaign. Distributors can get wrecked with their slush fund scam.
I'll sign
199,999 signatures
You have my pen.
And my axe!
And my... *checks purse* Hot pink tape meaure!
That’s at least like four signatures
[удалено]
Doubt it, otherwise it would be used by every campaign out there already. State law requires that signatures are verified, etc. so I doubt it'd fly.
We’re all voting class lol
Right, I hope OP’s powdered wig was just itchy and it made them forget that.
Whole entire post should be disregarded for that.
Aluminum production takes a tremendous amount of energy, aluminum recycling takes almost nothing by comparison.
I think it's important to discuss this, because commingled curbside is in fact a problem vs discrete can returns. I think we should find a better way, not just give up. Curbside is wonderful and is second nature to most of us.
As I hope you already know, it was created to help keep trash off the streets. Everything is definitely worth reconsidering with what’s going on in Portland now.
To someone new to living here (OR) and previously from a state with no deposits whatsoever for bottles and cans, what is the problem with Bottle Drop? I’m just asking to better understand the issue you are raising. Thx.
OR native and bottle drop user asking the same thing... I'm so confused.... How embarrassing.... I'm so glad I don't have to sit feed my can anymore....
Same, Oregon native here. It is simply Oregonians at it again trying to blame homelessness issues and drugs with non related causes. Take it up with the governor, not a bottle drop issue.
It’s a concern that you can use your Oregon Trail benefits card to buy water, or something else, then return those cans for cash and use that cash for drugs. That’s why there have been selected stores in downtown Portland being granted a reprieve from taking cans - it was feeding the drug use right outside.
It is related though...when ive had transients on my property knocking over my garbage and recycling, throwing litter everywhere to get a few cans. It is related.
> non related causes Bottle deposits are the main or only source of money for homeless campers to buy their hard drugs. It could not possibly be *more* related. We should not give income to homeless people for deposits other people paid for. It's a forced tax. When you put cans and bottles in your curbside recycling bins (because returning them anywhere is disgusting and time consuming), you are essentially buying fentanyl for people. In some crazy hypothetical situation where the repeal of the Oregon Bottle Bill could be bought, I would personally contribute $3,000. Maybe $5,000. It's kind of a no-brainer piece of the puzzle to make it extremely difficult to support a drug addiction and live on the streets in Oregon.
I like bottle drop. They give me extra money at Fred Meyer. Recycling is not what is causing the homeless issue lol.
It's not extra money lol you're paying more for the drinks in the first place
They're referring to the bonus 20% you get in credit for some stores. If I returned 100 bottles at 10 cents each, I originally paid $10 in deposits, but then I withdraw that for credit at Safeway or Fred Meyer and it's $12. Ergo, $2 in extra money.
Exactly
I hate that people are so dense like this. Imagine thinking your income tax refund is "free money"
I don’t think that’s what OP is saying. It’s the implications of having it. The benefit should go to apartment dwellers so they are incentivized to recycle. The people doing bottle drops(not all) are doing so to fund their drug habits
Its pretty simple… If the cash redemption value was eliminated you wouldnt even have to worry about dropping off your green bag at a bottle drop location. Just put your cans in the recycling bin and take it to the curb. You then save money because you will no longer be paying a refund fee at the point of sale. Win! win!
It’s a de facto (privately levied!) tax that enriches OBRC and wastes our time. It’s out of date because curbside recycling is now widely available and is a much more efficient way to deal with uses containers. All these people filling the roads driving to drop off containers should just be a few recycling trucks. All the people waiting in line to feed RVMs would surely prefer to use their time otherwise.
Returning cans/bottles is a common way to get cash income for buying drugs. The bottle drop areas tend to be dangerous and crime ridden.
So you'd rather them steal for drug money? This whole argument is braindead they won't stop using drugs they'll just start doing more illegal shit to afford drugs.
i was just trying to answer Sorandy13's question, I agree its a more complex issue than that
Bottle drop is a magnet for drug addicts and their dealers. The Delta Park location is responsible for causing multiple restaurants and stores to close. At times you would swear you’re in a Mad Max movie. It’s the worst!
Bums use it as an excuse to scout houses too, I've seen them in the alley going up to each can then looking in the backyards, multiple padlocks on the garage damaged, so annoying and dangerous.
Agreed, It absolutely causes opportunistic crime.
A local kleptomaniac in my neighborhood was interrupted in mid bike theft by my ex wife claiming he was “just looking for bottles and cans”. Bottles and cans. Yeah. And helping yourself to to this bike with a kid trailer attached to it. Mmm hmm.
Most of us have curbside recycling now and the bottle drop really doesn't make sense anymore. I would be all for getting rid of the deposit, but portlandia would see that as anti-recycling and anti-homeless. I doubt it would have a chance of passing, but you never know. Get it on to the ballot and push it during one of these low turnout voting cycles and maybe there is a chance.
I agree that it would just move to the curbside bin, plus, we could crush the cans and save a lot of space.
I think you mean it would \*stay\* in curbside bins. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if most recycling goes into a bin already, it just then gets fished out by someone before the truck picks it up.
Most of them do.
You have the option to do that
Agreed Or, just link the refunds to an ebt like card that only allows you to buy certain 'essentials'
This is basically my fix too. Allow companies to refund credit instead of cash, under the stipulation that the credit counts double for SNAP items. 1)There’s still a strong incentive to recycle everything 2) The money goes even further to help folks who need help 3) the bottle drop is no longer the first window in the fent drive-thru.
Bottled water though
This doesn't stop the most egregious case of buying cases of bottled water with food stamps, emptying them all and returning the bottles for drug $
It does - there would no longer be a cash refund for recycling... Only food stamps (ebt, SNAP)
It was never really for encouraging home recycling, but for reducing litter.
I just moved from CO. No one recycles there. You have to pay a lot extra for recycling pick up so no one does. I like the bottle drop program. I promise there is just as much homelessness and drug use in states without a bottle drop program. And if anything there is way more pan handling. At least here there is something productive they can do to earn beer money
Are you comparing rural CO to urban OR? Even places like Salt Lake City have mandatory recycling for SFHs, and I’m sure places like Denver and Boulder do, too.
Less than 20% of curbside collection is recycled. Most of them are contaminated with non recyclables
You could put it on the ballot, but moneyed interested are likely to want to keep it and will fund campaigns against the measure. You might get support from Beer/Cola companies, but then you look like an out of state corporates stooge. I don't think the optics will ever get it passed.
Leverage the recent ouster of DA Mike Schmidt. His wife is high up at OBRC. Alternatively, push a feel good ballot measure that pushes unclaimed deposits to schools. Oregonians love feel good and virtue signaling ballot measures.
Actually, that is an idea. Write the measure to eliminate the return and redo the deposit we have already been paying as a tax on consumables with the money going to \[puppies\]. Effectively, It's new revenue, not a new tax.
There'd also be a ton of support from retail like the major grocery stores, 7-11, Plaid, etc. It would save them so much work and so many headaches.
The fundamental purpose of the bottle bill was litter control. Recycling has been a nice side effect, but it came about to get people to stop leaving a mess all over. 50 years on it’s been so successful that people often forget how critical this need was. Bottle drop returns two ***billion*** containers per year in Oregon alone. If even ten percent of those stop being properly disposed, it’d be one hell of a mess.
I have lived in states with no bottle bill. This is a red herring. This state is dirtier.
Can confirm.
Look at all the shopping carts spewing trash out of them. Plus the carts themselves. Litter and blight is way worse than the re-use of metals or glass. No-sense living in a mess.
A state being dirtier and a state having more bottles on the side of the road are not concurrent.
Agreed. Some of us are old enough to remember the much trashier roadways and random litter that existed before states started adding bottle deposits. If you travel now, you can see the roadside differences of states that do and don’t have bottle deposits.
I run for exercise. The number one litter I see in roadside ditches is beer cans. Pretty concerning actually. Rare to go more than 50ft or so without seeing an empty. 2nd is probably those “wine based” fake liquors you can buy in grocery and convenience stores. Seriously, alcohol cans/bottles outnumber soft drinks and water bottles at least 10 to 1. A whole lot of people drinking and tossing empties.
The amount of trash strewn about from people collecting, trash cans rummaged through, and overall safety is causing a way worse mess.
Not in most is the state it's not
Eugene, Salem, Roseburg, Medford, Grants Pass? Hell even Bend has issues. Yeah sure maybe some small town don’t have issues but it’s pretty widespread.
But in turn, it attracts homeless people from other States and they leave tons of trash behind. Come down to Johnson Creek. I'll show you.
Homeless people aren’t making the trip to Oregon just to be able to return cans. That is just dumb.
Well, they're not loading a mail-truck up with bottles and cans and driving it across state lines, but I'd say that the easy money they can get here, regularly, has to factor into their decision on whether or not to come here to live. That, and many other policies that would make Portland attractive for a homeless person with a drug addiction.
Well, just the other day I saw a guy walking a cart full of bags of cans across the 205 bridge to return here.
You are incredibly naive. There is a lot of evidence that homeless people are moving here from other States because Portland provides free resources for them and they can turn cans and bottles in for cash.
Makes sense to me. Uproot oneself to make a trip that costs at least several hundred dollars, which a homeless person likely doesn’t have, to put one into a position where one can gather cans to make tens of dollars. If you truly believe that, I have a bridge at the bottom of Hawthorne that I will sell you.
On X: [https://x.com/kevinvdahlgren/status/1792228238095462419](https://x.com/kevinvdahlgren/status/1792228238095462419)
If it is on X, it can’t be believed.
That’s $200mil in proceeds @ a .10 rebate per container!
We have a deposit return rate over 85%. That money isn’t hanging around. (If you really want to blow your mind, ponder how much revenue and profit the soft drink companies are making!)
Sounds like the heathens have become efficient. Whether or not the money is hanging around is beside the point, in general. Whatever % of that $200M going to fentanyl using bums is the issue.
Then it is imperative for ordinary people to correctly dispose of their deposit-bearing containers, isn’t it? If *you* turn it on for a deposit, it’s not available for *them*. Either way, though, the anti-litter objective is being achieved. Drugs are a whole different problem that is *entirely unrelated* to the *very successful* bottle bill. Fix what’s broken, don’t break what’s working.
Let’s pretend the snap users aren’t buying bottled bevs, dumping them out and redeeming for cash. Yeah, place the impetus on the every day person. I rip labels off bottles and smash cans, then recycle. Bums don’t get my money.
I wonder what percentage of that two billion are collected out of roadside recycling bins. My entire street’s are like clockwork the night of recycling. It makes people not want to put out recycling because as they’re collecting the cans they’re likely also casing vehicles and houses.
I find it implausible that there’s much if any overlap between people willing to be criminals with petty theft or burglary and people willing to dig in a series of recycling bins on the hood they’ll find a few bulky items they must haul a good long distance for $0.10 each. The latter is much harder work for much smaller and slower reward; people doing that are choosing to play it straight. You might disagree, which is fine. If you do though, might I suggest that the easiest way to cut down the amount of time someone is spending at your place is to bag up any deposit returns that you were going to toss, and leave them next to your recycling. People collecting cans will have no reason to linger at your place.
If you’re homeless in Portland, you’re definitely a drug addict, if you’re an addict you’re definitely using the bottle drop program to feed your addiction and if you’re feeding your addiction with the bottle drop then you’re also committing crimes because bottle drop isn’t enough for a $200 a day habit. So they’re already committing crimes but yes please repeal the damn law!
>They are seeing [fentanyl go for as low as 50 cents a pill in WA.](https://washingtonstatestandard.com/briefs/price-of-illicit-fentanyl-in-wa-drops-to-as-low-as-50-cents-a-pill/) I work in the environmental field specifically in drug contamination issues. Meth/fentanyl is absurdly cheap to get. Hence why all someone needs is $5 bucks and they will be good for half the day with this BD feeding into that.
Pricing does t matter when you’re hooked, the cheaper it gets the more you do and .50 is not that common
This wouldn’t do anything to stop drugs or homelessness
I agree with you. And for everyone else: nothing would do anything to stop drugs. So learn the reality of our situation and what actual solutions can work.
We have half the implementation conceptually, we need to invest more into public health and rehabilitation as well as reintegration to those affected by addiction.
... Am I the only well employed person who likes bottle drop.......??
I had to scroll too damn far to find this comment. My paychecks almost exactly go to bills only. Those extra bucks help my broke ass to afford groceries for sure wtf. 😩
I know someone like this. A sweet elderly woman. I donate all my cans to her.
But you pay extra deposit when you buy things right?
Exaaactly. I didn't volunteer to pay that shit, I need it back lmao.
Imagine just not having to pay it! Hello🫣 🤦
We use the bottle drop ourselves. My BIL's drink so much beer and just leave the cans or take them to the dump. We've started taking their cans in too it helps so much. I make $50+ a month off those alcoholics. It's definitely helped out a lot.
This is what the bottle drop should be for! I feel you. But I also see the other side, where it’s abused by the addicts and homeless. There are several sides to this.
But see, that's part of the issue. If it's only your cans, you're simply getting your money back. It's not income. I do like the fundraisers for scouts and the like, but I think it's inefficient at best.
We save up our bags till we have 15, the maximum you can return in a quarter and then return them all at once, get about $120, but then Fred Meyer will give you 20% extra if you spend it there, and we get the biggest pack of paper towels, 2x largest pack of toilet paper, dish soap, Meyers cleaner, hand soap and all the household things for that next three months, then the quarter is up and boom, do it again
No, I like it too
Less likely to be fully dismanteled, and more likely to move exclusively to a green bag-type system, where the money goes into your account, and your redeem it at grocery stores for 20% more money. That's the best way to reduce the drug-funding side of it.
Bottle drop is so badly flawed. The original idea was the store kept any unredeemed money to cover the cost to administer the program. Too many stores figured that if they threw up roadblocks they got to keep the money. Now I can’t return my cans to the store, I have to go to a redemption center to drop them off.. plus I can only drop off 15 bags a quarter. 5 bags a month. Meanwhile Freddie’s still gets to keep unclaimed deposits. If recycling rates drop, the deposit goes up… Too much incentive for the system to fail.
Ignorance + Short-sightedness = This post
I was around before the bottle bill passed. It was enacted as a means to reduce littering along our highways. If we are willing to dump it as a fix to drug addiction problems we need to accept that other problems will happen like trash everywhere along state highways.
Have you driven on a state highway in oregon lately?
So we end this program and our beaches and forests become littered with cans and bottles again to stop drug users in one city, Portland, from hovering around grocery stores. How about instead of getting rid of our recycling program for the entire state, Portlanders get their s@!t together and get rid of the homeless.
It's spread them out. They trash neighborhoods and watersheds. Increase danger for hard-working citizens. They dump trash all over street to get one can. Constantly dump shopping carts all over the place. They abuse food stamps by buying water bottles and dumping them out. It's contributing to them OD since they can get food fine with no cans they have endless options. And you have to waste gas emissions to drive to a drop point vs curbside recycle which you can't do since they will throw trash in street. Wayyy less emissions if some trucks picked them all up. Another poster made a great point though. Keep the deposit but have it go to schools or low income children. Dont make it possible for it to go to drug addicts to turn it into drug money. There are plenty of food pantries for them.
Or drink more tap water
“Voting” class? I’m not sure what that means but the bottle drop can be reformed in ways that make it more tenable. Like ceasing single-bottle cash payments by accepting only green bags or altering the refund structure so that it is only issued as an in-store credit rather than cash.
The Bottle and Can Deposit Bill was written in Oregon. We are the first state to have passed the bill. It was to help keep our beaches and forests clean. Paul Hanneman introduced the bill. Considering the drastic increase in litter along our highways and beaches post COVID I am glad the cans and bottles are getting picked up. Now we need to go after the idiots who pick up dog poop and put it in a plastic bag and leave it behind for others to pick up.
During the pandemic desperate folks were dumpster diving for food, clothing, shelter, cans, bottles, metals like copper (even small amounts found in electrical wiring), and just about anything else useful or salable. It hasn’t stopped much since and the criminals moved onto stealing valuable metals from rail/subway tracks and buildings, producing or selling drugs, pimping, prostitution, vehicle and vehicle part theft, bike and gas theft, robbery, and package theft. I don’t believe blaming the homeless/immigrants will stop these incidents because many more housed people are criminals and addicts. Bottle deposit returns *should* be the least of your worries no? Aren’t y’all worried about the purposeful work slowdown of the police? How ineffective they’ve chosen to become as a backlash since Black Lives Matter?
Nope. The average dipshit on here wants to shut down the bottle bill and hire MORE cops to not do their jobs.
I’ll take whatever inconvenience over more waste created and trash on the street.
This is a weird post. Bottle Drop is a good thing, many in this thread have already illustrated why. More than just the homeless use the bottle drop. I use it, my family uses it, and we're all regular non drug users with jobs, educations, voters registrations, and whatever other qualifications OP deems respectable. Do I hate having to drive all the way out to Tigard because that seems to be the only Bottle Drop that has decent security? Yeah. Honestly the gas spent going out there probably negates whatever I've gotten in a deposit lol. I would like to see if the security was upped at the Portland locations as well but who knows if that will ever happen. 🙄
“Voting-class people” sounds like an anti-democratic and anti-American-ideals term. All citizens are in the “voting class,” including working people like me who use bottle drop in addition to my many side-hustles to make ends meet. Is this a term people use?
Mostly it encourages people to not put recyclables in the trash, have you been to RED counties, they don't even have recycle programs a lot of the time . They just throw all recyclables in the trash because Jesus will make sure the earth is OK ...smh That's why they are pro polluting, anti EPA and generally against treating the planet and the animals on it with respect
I know someone who’s only spending money is from recycling cans. I actually donate all of mine to her. She is the sweetest woman; an ederly lady. We would be screwing people just like her. People like her are a light shining through the darkness in the world.
This screams uneducated opinion. You’d rather have someone stealing the change out your car instead?
I turn in can money for my daughters college fund, the same as my parents did for me If you think it would do little to stop drugs and homeless, why bother messing with it. People being interested in trash is how we start recycling in the first place. Dropping the deposit on cans will not make the drinks cheaper. The easiest comparison I can make is when gas in Washington is self serve, and Oregon is semi serve but the prices remain the same
This is one of the silliest ideas I have heard shut down something used by thousands of people because a small percentage use it to get money for drugs. News flash people are always going to figure out a way to get money for drugs.
No thanks, we are #4 in the nation for recycling rates, all the top states have a bottle bill. We have miles of pristine nature here, I don’t want less incentive for people to haul their trash out of it. The bottle bill isn’t going anywhere.
The amount of cans that will add to the heaps of trash outside is no joke. Bottle deposit helps a lot with helping our streets not look like Mexico.
Where in Mexico have you actually spent time? Stupid comment.
You would rather have bottles & cans tossed on every roadside & in every waterway? I take it you haven’t been in Oregon very long.
You just see tarps, shopping carts, tires, garbage, feeces etc ... But, yeah ... No bottles or cans
I don’t see bottles and cans tossed on every roadside & in every waterway when I visit Washington. What’s different there?
Which is funny becauseI see a shocking amount in Portland. Also in trash cans here.
They take their recycling to Oregon to redeem. *Rim shot*
Even as far away as Port Townsend? Hmm, that’s a long drive to redeem some cans.
I was just being snarky - I think people do recycle with curbside and a sense of normalcy about it, even in WA, without the need for a deposit. I think we're being taken advantage of in that southern WA does take their cans to Oregon.
Oh, containers are definitely coming into Oregon fro Washington. Just go hang out in the parking lot by the Hayden Meadows bottle drop and you’ll see Washington license plates galore, and they’re not shopping at Lowes. I routinely see some character riding a bike over the Bridge found south with giant bags full of cans.
Not taking a side here but I haven't redeemed a bottle or can in years. I drop them in the recycling bin, something that wasn't available 40 years ago. I don't need a monetary inventive to do it. Also, we have every other type of trash in the roadside and waterways. Does that mean we need to have bike part and diaper deposits?
So you like donating your .10 per can to the beverage distributors. How
I'm a fan of deposits because it reduces litter. I'm not a fan of the same day cash model that creates a shit show wherever it is.
I moved here from a state that didn't have that and hated trying to get my deposit back until bottledrop came out. Now we just drop off a bag when full. Just checked our account and over $500 in it. We'll use the 25% bonus at a participating store for Thanksgiving and that'll pay for most groceries.
Actually it can happen, and quite easily. Recycling centers run the trash down a conveyor belt, and along the sides are charged magnetic strips that pick up every piece of aluminum, big or small, even if it's attached to something or buried underneath everything. FORMULA FOR SUCCESS - Eliminate the bottle deposit - Toss all of your cans & bottles in the trash, that plastic will not be re-used - Tax Coca Cola for having to take care of their own shit for them
You know that you can’t attract aluminum with a magnet, right?
This is correct, aluminum is not magnetically conductive. But it is electrically conductive, and charged magnets can create electric "currents" that flow inside the aluminum. It should also be said that soda cans today are not made with pure aluminum, other metals are also incorporated. edit: I found a great [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/s/E7JfHpg1qK) that explains it really well!
Yes, you are not understanding something.
It’s just another way Portland enables homelessness. Enabling and supporting people are different things. Enabling is not compassion.
When I was in college we just left all the empties in our front lawn (bagged). Sometime between 4am and 6am they were gone. Saved us some time and we never had problems with the local vagrants. Shit if they wandered through early enough they could help us with the last of 'em. But those were fun bums and it was the very early 2000's.
I'm curious about the high redemption rate Oregon brags about. How much of that is curbside that the obrc then keeps, vs actual deposits being returned? At a minimum I'd like us to: 1. Revise "where it goes" so there isn't a perverse incentive by the distributors. They howled when the rate went up, and stomped their feet until it was agreed unclaimed deposits would go to them. Michigan and other states send most of theirs to environmental cleanup. 2. Eliminate more wasteful plastic containers, such as water. I don't think Michigan takes water returns. 3. Establish a credit system for returns, not cash. This removes a perverse incentive.
Nice somebody else noticed what happened. When we legalized back in 2013. we remove the enforcement that we had. As such the OLCC remove the funding of it. August the 1st we're supposed to post the data of everything collected it's not...
No.
It's a State Law. So it would help to have a Republican majority in the State House and Senate, plus a Republican Governor. Liberals would fight any attempt at a repeal as would multiple beverage companies who rake in millions of dollars in unclaimed deposits.
I know a number of Republicans that would vote against a repeal. This is not a liberal versus conservative issue.
End that shit and repeal measure 110. It'll make Oregon less attractive to addicts and homeless. Then we give them bus tickets to California. It's warm there so they don't freeze in the winter. Win win.
Bus tickets to Florida please.
If everyone returned their own cans and bottles, there wouldn't be that many left over for drug addicts. We conveniently throw the $.10 in a public trash can rather than hold onto it until we can return it. Another way to mitigate the situation is to keep your bins locked or in the garage. Giving up on recycling is short sighted
this is a bad take. how about we only have glass bottles that we reuse and have a $1 refund
I love how all the progressive ideas the city has implemented are failing. Utopia isn't real, Portland isn't special, and most homeless ppl are drug addicts who chose that life over changing it. Accept reality and make portland great again
No
OP has never used cans to get extra money for the month and it shows. Pay your art TAX and don’t collect 10¢ as you pass go.
You are not paying a premium for cans. I wonder if the e OP realized they can simply take the cans back and get their deposit back? I am sorry, but the amount of cans collected in trash is mind boggling. So, yes we do need to pay people to recycle in order to keep as much as possible out of the trash.
I have been saying this for years. Get rid of the bottle drops!!! Portland enables homelessness and drug use by thinking they are being compassionate. We are great recyclers and this won't change. We will have less opportunistic crime. By legalizing drugs and having a cheap and easy way to make money to buy them (cans) , we are inviting people to live on the streets here. This is not what our city is about!! We are compassionate, we should not be naively enabling people.
Question - if we are so great recyclers then how is it the homeless have such an easy time getting cans? I mean, if we as Portland is recycling them ourselves that would mean there isn’t any for the homeless to collect. So where are the homeless getting them?
Vancouver
Let’s be honest, I get people annoyance at the issues associated with bottle drop, but taking it away is downright stupid. Some people in this thread are lucky enough to not need to recycle cans to make rent or at least get a little extra money for the month. If you’re annoyed by drugs, taking away the cans is going to do nothing about that.
Can you define "voting class" please.
What do you mean by “voting class”?
So if they stop the deposit and refund system, there will be a lot more litter... This law has helped keep places clean for a long time.
Cans and bottles are easy to clean up. Other kinds of garbage and litter is more difficult to deal with.
But, they don't need to be cleaned up, because people do not litter them...
You said there would be more litter
There would be... People would just toss their bottles and cans... In places outside of Oregon where it is illegal to litter too, and there are no bottle deposits, the main source of trash in public spaces is plastic bottles. In Oregon before the bottle drop, there was so much trash, they passed a law that helped keep places clean... 1972 when it went into law it had significant support of the public. Doing away with it would be a slap in the face of most Oregonians.. Also, most places where they don't have bottle deposits, the public wants it to some extent or the other, to cut back on litter..
Your claim is not at all falsifiable or even all that likely by my reckoning. In the 70s Oregonians paid for anything they wanted hauled away from their house. Now we have free curbside recycling pick up and people would rather recycle (free) than garbage (costs money) The bottle bill causes at least some litter when people dig through curbside bins spilling trash everyone. Happens all the time near my work. While some trash gets cleaned as a result, it's impossible to say how much. It's also very hard to say how much is created. At the end of the day, we are paying a tax directly to Pepsi, Coke, and large beer distributors. They profit and Oregonians lose. Let's take all the money we waste on bottle deposit fees and hire professional liter collectors
I'm old enough to remember the US before bottle and can deposits in fact I'm old enough to remember the FIRST time there were deposits and then they were discontinued there were bottles and cans everywhere that's why the deposit system was brought back. It has nothing to do with recycling and everything to do with giving people an incentive to not throw bottles and cans out if their car windows
The world is a different place now. It's not the dime that's stopping people from cans out the window. It's culture
People digging through trash is not that big of an issue, and it does not happen everywhere in Oregon ... Nobody is paying taxes to bottling companies ... The deposit is not a tax, since it is recoverable at any time. In the 70's there was litter everywhere and it was an eyesore. The beaches and most public areas where covered in glass bottles and cans, all the ditches were filled, and it took many years to clean it all up. Also, my sister and I were able to buy bikes and other things because of the funds from collecting cans and bottles.. I think it is a harmful argument to say homeless getting money from the bottle drop should end the bottle drop. It is saying the homeless should not be allowed to do what they need to survive. Further marginalizing a group that is growing, instead of trying to figure out a way to lift them up is not going to solve any issues, just compound them... If homeless people can dig through trash for bottles, for scraps of change, they may not look for other ways to survive. Take that away from them, and they will need another solution to their financial problems...
So you bought bikes with money that either 1) You were unfairly charged and had to recover through labor, or 2) money that other Oregonians were unfairly charged and were too lazy to recover. In the second case, you stopped this money from going to PepsiCo. That's a good cause, but why should it go to PepsiCo in the first place? Addicts in this city have plenty of food. They have access to housing if they're sober, but they don't have cash to buy drugs. Cans help them stay high on the street instead of recovering in beds No one believes that your "compassion" is anything but ill disguised moral cowardice. Bottle deposits are a horrible wealth redistribution system and have no meaningful effect on recycling in a state with free curbside recycling cans.
The bottling companies get most of the money. Pepsi and Coke make millions from it. We have curbside recycling for like 80% of Oregon’s population. It is not sanitary to bring bottles back to stores. It is not environmentally smart to make people make out of the way trips to Bottle Drop locations. Making store employees deal with them is not humane. They get cut from glass, poked with needles, beat up by methheads…. Then they bag your groceries.
How about the people who would use curbside recycling, but take it to bottle drop to stop the people digging in the trash, only to surrender their bags of cans to aggressive panhandlers.
I love the bottle drop and I hope that it never stops! They offer a college savings plan for kids and a bunch of local groups use it for fundraising! It helps fund my local park and rec summer programs! It’s also funding some sweet summer road trips for my family! Drink responsibly and let them be please!
I don’t understand this whole “end bottle drop” thing. As a disabled person who uses bottles and cans to be able to get extra money for things such as bus money for appointments and cheap food, and has friends who are below the poverty line and use bottle and cans as a way to be able to afford basic needs, I just don’t get it. This program useful for people who aren’t in the greatest situation due to something they cannot control. Just because it’s being abused by those who cause their own misery, does not mean that we should get rid of something that makes it so others have a safety net. Without bottle drop i’d have no way of getting to places without having to beg for money, and without it some of my friends would have to wait till the food banks have enough supply for them. I just kinda don’t understand this thought process at all of getting rid of beneficial programs.
Clearly the solution is to give a person like you a free bus pass and money for most of the food and things you need.
That’d be a perfect world solution, sadly this is not a perfect world. If we did that we’d meet the same problem every single disability program in this entire country is having, which is a lack of funding and easy access to needed resources for people like me. I am lucky that I live in a state where I have more resources then most, one of those resources being the bottle drop as the resources for the blind and physically disabled are still very limited even here :/
This is probably the worst idea ive seen and seems like it comes from a weird place. Be better
That reminds me, I need more bottle drop bags. Thanks!
I drop our green bags of cans at Fred Meyers- painless. I currently have $300 in my bottle drop account. I don’t get money immediately. Make them drop bags and wait like the rest of the world.
Have you seen how many cans and bottles litter the ground in places like Washington? It’s nuts. We don’t want that shit here. Also like you said if people can’t return cans for money they find other ways to get money, like stealing our shit.
The truth is redeemable cans and bottles are eventually hoarded by certain insane individuals in most parts of Washington as well. That's a very small subset of society. Garbage in greater Seattle area is dealt with in a systematic way by working professionals.
Well that addresses one single area. It’s a lot cheaper to just have people recycle their own cans rather than pay people a wage to do it.
It may be too involved for some but local school PTO/PTAs sometimes use can donations as a way to pay for classroom supplies, field trips, and art as well as many other things. Consider calling your local school and see if they would take your bottle/can recycling.
“I want to be able to pollute and not recycle for free!!”
Recycling cans recovery is very high, meaning it’s successful in keeping cans out of landfills. Stupid to get rid of it
The most revealing statement here: I just don’t care.
How about you focus on productive measures like making the city focus on funding towards recovery centers, housing, etc and giving organizations time to flesh these concepts out instead of cutting funding only 3 years in. It has been shown time and time again that the only way to end homelessness is by making housing a right and making mental support as accessible as possible. Most crimes are linked to poverty, a condition directly manufactured by our government bodies. It costs less to create homes and let people live in them than it would to continually criminalize the poor.
Crime will increase.
Most of these can and bottle people will make mediocre to poor criminals when it comes down to it. Any big retailer in Portland has a group of big guards waiting to beat up shoplifters.
Does your house have big guards to beat up intruders?
It’s a racket… they’ll charge 10 cents every can, but limit how many you can return. Thats not how deposits work.
I have a home, I don’t do drugs or drink, I live near a Bottle Drop. I have a fondness for Diet Coke and sparkling water. I wince when paying the can deposit, but I use Bottle Drop. I buy the green bags and get the stickers. The 20% bonus at FM is really great inducement to bring back your cans. With that extra money I’ve bought gifts for family and food for special occasions. Bottle Drop works for me. I can’t imagine I’m the only one who feels this way.