Oregon Public Broadcasting

Oregon lawmakers are backing off an attempt to divert millions of dollars of unredeemed bottle deposits into state coffers.  But an amended version of the bill would shed light on how much money drink distributors collect.

It passed out of committee Wednesday, as Salem correspondent Chris Lehman reports.

The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality estimates that soda and beer distributors hang onto as much as $30 million a year in deposits from unredeemed bottles and cans.  But it’s only a guess, because distributors aren’t required to disclose those numbers.  

They say they use the money to run the recycling program.  That’s something that Democratic Representative Michael Dembrow doesn’t buy.

Michael Dembrow:  “To be honest, we don’t know how true that is.  We don’t have the data.” 

Still, he says there wasn’t enough legislative support for his proposal to force distributors to send all those nickels to the state.  

With that idea dead, the amended version of the bill would still require bottlers to report to the state how much money they keep.

A separate measure to add more beverages to the bottle bill and possibly raise the deposit to a dime has stalled.