Rethinking recycling, redemption.

Byline: Matt Cooper The Register-Guard

What you choose to drink is your problem. Where you put the empty is Alex Cuyler's - and that problem is growing, he says.

Cuyler, Eugene's solid waste and recycling analyst, said too few drink containers are redeemed. More cans and bottles are winding up on Oregon roadsides, parks and beaches, he said. Recycling rates for these containers are falling nationwide and in Oregon.

Meanwhile, recyclables that are sorted and shipped to companies for reuse are often cross-contaminated, Cuyler said - paper mixed in with glass, glass ground into the paper, for instance.

And Oregon's 33-year-old Bottle Bill - the legislation that oversees redemption - doesn't include uncarbonated beverages, which have grown over the years.

Cuyler, who heads the Association of Oregon Recyclers, wants to get all of the participating groups into a room and hammer out a solution. He's asked for help from the Oregon Consensus Program, a state program at Portland State University that emphasizes problem-solving through collaboration. He should know by June whether the issue will be accepted.

Cuyler wants to do four things:

Expand the Bottle Bill to include sports drinks, water bottles, wine coolers and wine/liquor;

Raise the deposit value to 10 cents, up from 5 cents;

Establish a nonprofit company to oversee redemption;

Add hundreds of centers statewide that would accept any beverage container, regardless of where it was purchased.

Paying for all of this is still a question, Cuyler said, but two possibilities would be to use the money that collects when a bottle isn't redeemed, or to add a handling fee of 2 or 3 cents to each beverage.

One group likely to resist change, however, is the Oregon Beer and Wine Distributors Association.

The association won't support changes that increase the redemption value, because its wholesalers are already taking a hit, Executive Director Paul Romain said - they must pay 5 cents per bottle to collectors who, knowingly or not, bring redeemables illegally from other states.

Some say the association holds millions of dollars in 5-cent deposits that are paid by grocers and never redeemed by customers, but Romain said the redemption rate is near 100 percent, due to this cross-border traffic.

In fact, the association's members would gladly excuse themselves from the redemption system and the costs they absorb, Romain said. "We'll go for any change that takes us out of the Bottle Bill."

On the other hand, garbage and recycling collectors probably won't be opponents or proponents of changing the system, said Kristan Mitchell, governmental affairs director for the Oregon Refuse and Recycling Association.

If more bottles and cans are redeemed, "it would probably change the mix of what we see curbside," she said. "But I don't think it would adversely affect our programs."

In Eugene, residents have the option of "commingling" their curbside recycling - that is, all recyclables except glass can go into one container.

Cuyler is a big supporter of the program but a drawback, he said, is the challenge to perfectly sort the materials so that the companies that use the recyclables get a pure supply.

With redemption, customers effectively sort those materials when they place drink containers in either the glass, plastic or aluminum machines at redemption centers.

"The quality of collected recyclables is deteriorating," Cuyler said. "The redemption stuff is by far a much more pure stream."

If the recycling stream is pure and companies can use more of the material, that keeps more refuse out of the landfill, said Lou Broline, plant manager for Portland-based Owens-Illinois Glass Container Inc., which turns broken glass or "cullet" into new glass containers.

CAPTION(S):

Damien Czech with BRING Recycling looks over the glass holding area at the Glenwood Transfer Station. "The quality of collected recyclables is deteriorating," one recycling expert says.