Social Policy FAIL

[Blaubart]

I recently got back from vacation and while I was away, I had the opportunity to witness firsthand the complete and total failure of a social policy. That policy was Oregon's recycling policy. Like so many other social programs, I'm sure this one was implemented with nothing but good intentions. And like so many other social programs, it completely fails to deliver.

While we were on vacation, we consumed all sorts of sodas, juices, and bottled water that required a deposit. Two of these were bottles of Henry Weinhart's cream soda that we bought at the Tillamook Cheese Factory for my two boys. When I asked a friendly associate where I could get my deposit back, she informed me that they did not handle refunds, but that I should instead go across the highway to the Fred Meyer store.

When our days in Oregon had come to an end it was time to recycle our plastic, glass and aluminum that we saved for the deposit, so we headed on down to the local Fred Meyer. After enjoying the privilige of waiting in line for about ten minutes, we took our turn at one of the wonderful machines that is capable of handling all three materials. We fed them in one after another. I wasn't surprised when all of the ones that didn't require a refund were rejected. I was surprised when a lot of the ones that did require a refund were also rejected, including a bunch of bottles of water that we had purchased at none other than Fred Meyer. I assume the reason they were rejected was because the labels were falling off. These labels had to be the cheapest I have ever seen. They were basically like the paper strip that is used to fasten your napkin/silverware bundle in a restaurant. But, if the machine can't read the barcode, then you're screwed on your deposit.

In the end, I'd say at least half of our bottles and cans were rejected. So there we were holding a bag of recyclable materal, looking for a recycling bin to toss them in, but we couldn't find one. Come to think of it, we hadn't seen one anywhere in Oregon. Which makes sense, because who would throw a bottle or a can into a recycle bin where you couldn't get your deposit back? Of course there wasn't a trash can in Fred Meyer's recycling facility either, so we just threw them in one of the trash cans by the entrance and headed in to stand in a checkout line for our refund of $1.35.

Sooooo, let's compare their recycling program to what we have here in backwoods Montana where we don't collect a deposit on bottles and cans.

We don't have to install these costly machines to process deposit refunds. Instead, there are recycling bins EVERYWHERE! I don't have to take my bottles home with me so I can save it for my next trip to the recycling center. I just toss it in a bin next to the trash can wherever I bought it, or wherever I finished it.

At home, I bring my cans and bottles to a recycling point where there are bins where I just dump bags of crushed cans or bottles into. I don't have to stand in line so I can take my turn feeding my cans and bottles into a machine. I don't have to keep my cans and bottles uncrushed so a machine can read the barcode. I go to the recycling point every few months when I've collected enough stuff to fill up the entire ass end of my Toyota Sienna with the seats down. It usually takes me a grand total of 10-15 minutes to put all of it into the proper bins, and since I didn't have to handle every single bottle and can, my hands aren't all sticky afterwords either. By the time someone in Oregon gets through the line to the machine, I'm done and on my way.

What's more, I take all of my recyclables to the same place. Cans, bottles, newspaper, cardboard, etc.

I'd be interested to see comparisons between states that have deposit programs and those that don't that show the total number of recyclable containers sold versus the total number recycled.

However, without seeing any numbers, I know enough already to say that Oregon's recycling program is a complete and total failure...

[TROOPER]

I lived in California for just over a year. They have a "deposit" of 5 cents for less than one liter, and 10 cents for one liter and up. When its time to get your deposit back, the vendors go by weight. Surprise, surprise, you do NOT get your deposit back. Although the line usually lasts about an hour. All very convenient.

Oh, extra funny; I had a one liter bottle of "fish tank" water, but because it wasn't for human consumption, it wasn't subject to the CRV bs. So the guy says, "We can't buy this off of you". So I say, "No big deal, just throw it in the bag with the others after you've weighed it, and I won't get paid" -- thinking that this would recycle the material, but with no financial incentive. Guy says "no", even though the bottom of the bottle said that it was #2 material, or whatever. I had to throw it into a trash can.

Major failure of a system. Its just for collecting taxes under the guise of recycling.

[doubloon]

Isn't the majority of this feel good recycling gov't subsidized?

By handing materials over to these people aren't you in effect raising your own taxes one bottle at a time?

[jppd47]

Isn't the majority of this feel good recycling gov't subsidized?

By handing materials over to these people aren't you in effect raising your own taxes one bottle at a time?

You pay the 5 cents at time of purchase. It goes into the state, they spend it. You turn you bottles in to get your deposit back, and the state now has to borrow the money to pay you back.

[chrismartin]

Maybe the Earth just needed us to get Plastic and Styrofoam. (paraphrased from George Carlin)
Now that the Earth has what it needs, it's time for us to fade away...

[robpiat]

Just found some stats, Michigan has a 95%+ average return rate. That blew me away.

[Abiqua]

Oregon's bottle bill started out as a way to reduce litter. It's now a revenue generation scheme. Even a small percentage of the millions upon millions of $0.05 deposits per year collected that end up not returned to the consumer equals millions of dollars to the state. As a way to expand that revenue stream they've recently added water bottles and other containers to the list of list of containers that require deposit. After years of being conditioned to throw them in the recycling bin, I have to believe that the percentage of water bottles not being returned for deposit is substantially higher than soda bottles and cans.

[doubloon]

Isn't the majority of this feel good recycling gov't subsidized?

By handing materials over to these people aren't you in effect raising your own taxes one bottle at a time?

You pay the 5 cents at time of purchase. It goes into the state, they spend it. You turn you bottles in to get your deposit back, and the state now has to borrow the money to pay you back.

Ah, so not straight up recycling. It's a refund of a deposit.

Still, you pay the nickel and you get the nickel back so who covers the cost of recycling?

[-k-]

The stores have to take that recycling so it raises operating costs. Those costs are most likely passed on to the consumer.


I look at it from a different perspective. Bums gotta drink too you know. If I throw my bottles out on the side of the road for them to collect I'm less likely to have my car broken into by a thirsty bum.

[Blaubart]

Still, you pay the nickel and you get the nickel back so who covers the cost of recycling?

In a perfect world, the buyers of the recycled material pay the bill, but alas, this is not a perfect world, so it's a combination of the buyers and various subsidies.

What chaps my hide is when companies can't make enough money to cover the cost of recycling, despite the existing subsidies, so they ask for more money from the local community to make it work. Before any silly liberals chime in about how cheap I am, it isn't about the money. It's about the overall "cost". The main expense in recycling is energy. Fuel to transport the recyclables to a recycling facility. Energy to recycle the material. Energy to transport the material to a buyer. Sooooo, if you aren't making enough money to cover the costs of recycling, that means it probably uses more resources to recycle than to mine or build the material. Yes, of course mining and producing plastics also has an environmental cost associated with them, but recycling just for the sake of recycling despite the fact that in some circumstances it doesn't make environmental sense is stupid. To put it in buzzwords that liberals understand: Which would you rather have? Less mining and less landfill waste, but at the expense of a larger overall carbon footprint, or a smaller overall carbon footprint, but at the expense of more mining and more landfill waste? Because in some rural areas, you can't have both a smaller carbon footprint and less mining and less landfill waste. In some areas, we're talking about a significantly larger carbon footprint to offset slightly higher mining and landfill waste.

Glass is a good example. It takes about the same amount of energy to recycle glass as it does to produce it from scratch. Add in the energy expense of collecting and transporting glass to a recycling facility and it often uses a lot more fuel and energy. We had to stop recycling glass here in Bozeman a couple of years ago because we couldn't find a facility close enough to make it worthwhile to recycle it. There is a pulverizer about 30 miles east in Livingston, but there's a mountain pass in between and they have enough glass from their own community and don't want ours. People complain all day long that we aren't recycling our glass, and they also complain about all the gravel pits around town. I'm thinking it would probably make financial sense to start up a pulverizer here, but I don't have that kind of money and I have no experience running a business like that.