After learning that return rates for bottles and cans have sunk to their lowest levels since 1990, a pioneer of the California Redemption Value beverage-container deposit now finds himself ready to recycle the program itself.
With a bill now pending before the state Assembly, Sen. Byron Sher hopes to prod consumers into redeeming their spent containers by imposing levies on beverages that were omitted from the original 1986 legislation -- bottled water, iced tea, flavored coffee and fruit juices -- and doubling the deposit on 20-ounce plastic bottles, which have begun to rival aluminum cans as the container of choice.
The Stanford Democrat says the new fees are needed because the recycling rate has fallen to 74%, according to 1998 figures from the state Department of Conservation. That's below the 80% goal established by the program and the peak participation rate of 82%, reached in 1992. Not since 1995 has the 80% target been met.
"We know that plastic -- particularly if it's not covered by the bottle bill -- is recycled at a much lower rate," says the senator.
"In 1986, these products didn't exist; there wasn't bottled water with fruit juice and Snapple and sports drinks," adds Mark Murray, executive director of Californians Against Waste, a recycling-advocacy group based in Sacramento. "We're kind of making up for lost time."
Moreover, the 20-ounce bottles are recycled far less often than the aluminum cans they replace. The Conservation Department says that just 57% of plastic beverage containers were recycled last year, compared with 80% of aluminum cans. A department spokesman, Mark Oldfield, says he suspects that consumers don't realize the bottles can be returned, even though they are marked "California Redemption Value."
Another theory, Mr. Oldfield says, is that individuals are more apt to return aluminum cans, as private recyclers will pay more than the official redemption value because the metal can fetch higher prices than plastic.
Mr. Sher's Senate Bill 332 has passed the upper house and was approved by an Assembly committee on Monday. But critics, including major beverage manufacturers, say it punishes curbside recyclers while expanding a program that is itself intrinsically flawed.
Indeed, the California recycling program, which currently applies to beer, wine, wine coolers and carbonated soft drinks, differs considerably from those of other states. In Oregon and Connecticut, for example, consumers pay a five-cent deposit -- the amount itself is printed on the can or bottle -- which they get back when they return containers to a supermarket or other point-of-sale. The California Redemption Value, however, varies from 2.5 to five cents depending on beverage size, and the amount isn't printed on the container.
Moreover, thanks to the political compromise that saw the bottle bill enacted 13 years ago, grocers aren't required to redeem used containers. Instead, if consumers want their deposit back, they must locate a separate recycling center, which can be miles away from a supermarket.
"You have to load up your car so you can take your bottles to some guy in an igloo in a supermarket parking lot," says Chip Kunde, vice president for state affairs for the Grocery Manufacturers of America, a lobbying group in Washington, D.C. "I think it's very inconvenient. A family that buys a 64-ounce juice container is going to have to put that in a bag and bring it back to the {recycling center} when they could just put it in a bin on the curb. Where are our priorities?"
The low deposits and inconvenient return system have made recycling more bother than it's worth for many Californians.
As a result, the state has been collecting more in deposits than it has been paying out; for the fiscal year ending today, the deposit fund ran a surplus of about $123 million, according to the Conservation Department's Mr. Oldfield. That's out of total collections estimated at about $356 million -- meaning that, even after subtracting administrative costs and special incentive payments to recyclers, more than one-third of all deposits collected from consumers went unredeemed.
Since Mr. Sher's legislation would expand the program, critics say that's doubling down on a regulatory gamble that has yet to pay off. The bill would increase the number of containers covered by the program to 15 billion from 13 billion, according to a Senate staff report. And, says the grocery manufacturers' group, that means the amount collected from consumers would rise 17% to $415 million. The group's Mr. Kunde says it would be wiser to raise residents' fees for municipal garbage collection -- giving consumers more incentive to recycle -- and to beef up curbside recycling efforts.
In fact, Mr. Sher's bill would allocate some $15 million annually to curbside recycling programs from the surplus. And those programs, usually operated by city sanitation departments, would benefit from the expansion of the deposit system, since they receive the redemption value of all the containers they collect.
Nevertheless, even supporters admit that the latest take on the redemption program may not whet Californians' appetite for returning bottles and cans. Says Mr. Sher's chief of staff, Kip Lipper, "I admit, it's a gamble in terms of trying to get these recycling rates up."
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