Bottle bill expansion begins on New Year’s Day

There are some changes going into effect this week that are great news for recycling in Oregon. Beginning Jan. 1, Oregon’s Bottle Bill will expand to include water and flavored water containers. That means that, in addition to those plastic water and flavored water containers, beer and malt beverages, soda, mineral water, and carbonated soft drinks will all be redeemable for a 5 cent deposit. Be sure to look for the “OR 5¢ deposit” on the label.

As one of OEC’s first key issues, the original Bottle Bill was passed in 1971. OEC led citizen support that passed Oregon’s bottle bill, the first of its kind in the nation. The Bottle Bill set the stage for easy environmental solutions we now take for granted, like curbside recycling (OEC helped pass a law guaranteeing curbside recycling in 1983). Thirty seven years later, the bottle bill is still doing its job. Now, hopefully it will begin to keep plastic water bottles out of the landfill, and put them into the recyclate stream.

For more information about the bottle bill, check out the Oregon Liquor Control Commission’s web site at http://www.oregon.gov/OLCC/bottle_bill.shtml

And you thought they just made sure everyone got carded…

Here are eye opening facts brought to you by the Oregon Liquor Control Commission:

• Oregon’s Bottle Bill was the very first bottle deposit program in the United States?  Since then, ten other states have adopted similar programs.
• Since 1971, the amount of beverage containers in litter along Oregon roadsides has dropped from 40 percent to 6 percent.
• Recycled beverage containers are used to make hundreds of products including fleece jackets, carpeting, baseball bats, license plates, and insulation as well as new beverage containers.
• Recycling a ton of plastic bottles saves approximately 3.8 barrels of oil. 
• Recycling one pound of PET (polyethylene terphthalate) plastic bottles saves approximately 12,000 BTUs of energy. 
• Using recycled materials uses 2/3 less energy than using raw (virgin) materials