Beverage container recycling.

              INTERIM STUDY REPORT
Agriculture, Wildlife and Environment Committee
Rep. Phil Richardson, Chairman
Oklahoma House of Representatives
Interim Study 11-008, Rep. Mark McCullough, combined with 11-018 Rep. George Faught
October 25, 2011
Beverage Container Recycling
Kevin S. Dietly
Northbridge Environmental
kdietly@nbenvironmental.com
• We need to start looking at our waste as a resource and pull material out of the waste
stream and use it.
• A large number of people in this country are involved in decisions about what to do with
waste. There are 30,000 organizations, including cities that make decisions about waste,
so a lot of stakeholders must be taken into account when making decisions.
• The beverage industry, not including alcohol, is among the most innovative in container
recycling and beverages are only a small part of the waste stream.
• Forty percent of beverage containers get recycled each year.
• We also need to worry about how trash is managed so that it doesn’t become litter. Litter
is just trash in the wrong place. About 7 percent of items littered are beverage containers.
• The industry adopted a full-circle plan three years ago. The branches are innovate,
activate and motivate.
• In the area of innovation, the beverage industry has made lighter packaging to use less
material. For example, the lips on aluminum cans are smaller as are the caps on water
bottles. Water bottles are also thinner.
• In the area of motivation, the industry is using advertising, social networking and rewards
to motivate consumers.
• The area of activation involves strategies such as teaching recycling programs how to
demonstrate the best way to recycle and to share best practices. In addition, some cities
are trying things like charging more for trash service and less for recycling. Advocates
are supporting legislative efforts to provide incentives for recycling.
• If people had to pay more for trash, they would throw away less and be more careful
about what they purchase so they are less wasteful.
• The industry has a long-standing opposition to deposit legislation. The main reason is that
paying deposits on bottle purchases is so limited in its focus and there is a lot of effort for
a little recovery.
• Deposits have some unintended consequences like loss of sales near the border of states
with deposit laws and people bringing bottles into a state to obtain money. In some cases,
people will make trips to redeem bottles but may spend more time and money to redeem
them than they’re worth.
• Delaware overturned its deposit law last year.
• Deposit laws often keep the most valuable recycling items out of cities’ recycling
programs which hurt those programs since cities cannot receive the financial benefit of
recycling those items.
• Ten states have deposit laws. Oregon was the first followed by California in 1986.
Hawaii enacted its law in 2002.