Oregon Public Broadcasting

Oregonians are familiar with the idea of shelling out a nickel deposit on a can of soda or a bottle of beer.  With the new year, you’ll pay those five extra cents every time you buy a bottle of water, too.  

It’s the first major change to Oregon’s bottle bill in more than three decades.  Salem correspondent Chris Lehman tracked the lifecycle of a bottle of water.

We begin at a company called Oregon Rain.  It sells one thing:  Bottled water. At this plant north of Salem, a machine fills plastic bottles with filtered rain water.

A worker monitors the production line at the Oregon Rain bottling plant in Gervais, OR.

Starting soon, you’ll have to pay a nickel more for this or any other bottled water, at least in Oregon.  That’s because water is being added to the state’s landmark bottle bill.  

For Oregon Rain owner Dan McGee, the change is not a big deal.  His customers in California already pay a deposit. McGee thinks any effort to keep water bottles out of landfills is a good idea.

Dan McGee:  “I think adding water -- given its current volumes -- when you look at the total number of plastic bottles that are produced -- was the correct thing to do. The more bottles that are returned, the more bottles that are recycled, the better it is for the environment.”

The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality estimates that more than 200 million bottles of water are sold in the state each year.  Well over half of those get tossed in the trash.  

Compare that to items requiring a deposit, such as soda and beer.  Only about 20 percent of those end up in a landfill.

That’s why in 2007, lawmakers passed Senate Bill 707. It added a nickel deposit to water bottles.  

Back then, Joe Gilliam of the Northwest Grocery Association predicted doom and gloom.

Joe Gilliam “707 is a dog that doesn’t hunt.  It will collapse the system. And we’re not going to stand and let that happen.”

Almost two years later, Gilliam strikes a less defiant tone.

Joe Gilliam:  “It probably would have been better had the Legislature phased this in and gave us a little more time, but what’s done is done.”

Even though he’s resigned to the change, Gilliam says stores are bracing for an onslaught of additional bottles to process. 

Joe Gilliam:  “We hope the consumers out there will be patient with us.”

Under the new law, a bottle of water that’s purchased at groceries stores can be returned to get your nickel back.

That’s what retired truck driver Bill Ellsworth is doing at this Albertson’s in Keizer.  He says he makes about $50 a week by scrounging for discarded cans, and expects to make even more with water bottles.

Bill Ellsworth:  “Great, great, because I’ve been, for years, been throwing them away.  Great!”

Once the grocery stores collect the bottles, they send them on to one of several processing centers around the state.

The plastic used in bottles, known as PET, is turned into everything from toys to carpet to patio furniture.

John Andersen of Portland based Container Recovery Incorporated says the market for recycled materials nearly came to a halt this fall.  Now, it’s starting to open up again, although he says processing millions of water bottles will still be a challenge:

John Andersen:  “Unfortunately, from an operating standpoint, PET is the most difficult commodity to deal with because it doesn’t compact well. So it takes up more space to store.”

Think about it this way:  You can crush a pop can down into practically nothing.

But try that with a water bottle. 

It just doesn’t want to stay crushed.

More changes could be on the way for Oregon’s Bottle Bill.  A state task force recommends adding sports drinks, fruit juice and wine to the list of deposit items.  

The task force also suggests doubling the deposit to a dime.  The Legislature will take up those proposals during the 2009 Legislative session.

Web Extra:

Fact sheet about upcoming changes to the Bottle Bill (.pdf)