Counting Bottles and Cans at MT Returnables
Two weeks ago, I worked a shift at Jade Eddy’s MT Returnables Redemption Center in Queensbury, New York. She had put a notice for help on her social media page a couple days ago, and I offered to work for the day. Inside her building was a labyrinthine of recycling bags, sorted and unsorted, lining the walls. Her business has been in the family for decades, started by her father in 2005 before he tragically passed away five years ago.
We have become friends over the years, and she has taught me, as well as thousands of others, the problems with the New York Bottle Bill that allows businesses like hers to exist. Started in 1982, the New York Returnable Container Law was “enacted with the purpose to reduce litter, ease the burden on solid waste facilities, and encourage recycling activity”. It has since been updated three times, most recently in 2009. But that was sixteen years ago, and a lot has changed in the economic reality for redemption centers.
Since 2009 in New York, minimum wage has more than doubled while the handling fee (3.5¢ per container) provided by distributers for the cost of redemption center operations has remained stagnant. According to the Empire State Redemption Association, over 25% of redemption centers have closed in the last couple years due to rising costs. To add to the insanity, New York State retains 80% of unredeemed deposits paid by consumers; since 2009, it has ballooned to over $2 billion dollars, averaging $131 million per year. It continues to rise as consumers lose access to redemption centers.
Jade, as well as others at the Empire State Redemption Association, have been on the forefront the past decade to pressure state representatives to update the Bottle Bill to fix the myriad of issues. As I learned from working on Thursday, the issue is not only related to stagnant handling fees. One of the issues that has accelerated over the years is the strange rules for what is and isn’t returnable. Take the popular brand Liquid Death. Started in 2017 by Mike Cessario, it was a way to market and package still water in a unique way. While the still water cans are returnable, the other variations, like its iced tea and lemonade concoctions, are not returnable. The issue? They are made of the same material that should be streamlined together.
Another issue is the exclusion of glass wine bottles. Instead of using the bottle redemption process to streamline recycling, the bottles are thrown into the wayside of the trash business. Most likely ending up in landfills instead of smelted down into new bottles. As Jade informed me, the wine industry as pushed back around its inclusion in the process. The big soda distributers, like PepsiCo, have also pushed back on any updates to the bill, citing potential increases in fraudulent redemptions. (A problem that journalist Angela Eichhorst of the Connecticut Mirror illuminated as false.)
It is a problem that can be easily solved, with many bills introduced but not voted on by the state legislatures. The state, after sixteen years, needs to increase the handling fee supplied by distributers to redemption centers and broaden the returnable products to reduce confusion.
Jade has shown me that this issue will affect more people than legislatures realize. Her redemption center offers nonprofit charities to setup fundraisers. As an example, a local Boy Scouts organization collects bottles and cans with a yearly return of around $20,000 with a half million containers that would otherwise end up in the landfill. If more redemption centers shutdown due to stagnant handling fees and increased labor costs, it will remove a viable and environmentally positive option for fundraising efforts.
The other issue in this struggle relates to the way bottles are collected in upstate New York. Currently, TOMRA NY Recycling is the largest company that picks up empty containers from redemption centers, severely limiting options for pickup. During my shift on Thursday, I was able to witness the pickup process. While the handling of hundreds of heavy bags and loading them onto a tracker trailer was laborious, the paperwork involved was tedious. Each bag of cans and plastic bottles had been sorted by distributor, with Jade noting the amount of each. The truck driver placed a dozen barcode stickers on a selection of bags, with Jade noting that the rest of the hundred bags were calculated by truck load.
By the time the last bag was loaded on the truck, I was exhausted and spent, a feeling that Jade knew all too well. But the day was not finished, as more cars and trucks arrived at the parking lot filled with unsorted bags of recycling. While there are automated machines available for sorting, most independent redemption centers use manual methods. Jade’s father had setup a dozen cardboard receptacles with plastic liners to allow a system of organization by distributor and material type.
Unfortunately, sorting through customer bags yielded unexpected findings, like trash and unredeemable recycling. Jade is working on a campaign for the Empire State Redemption Association which highlights the “unpaid” labor of sorting out the unredeemable bottles and cans, especially given that a spurious nature of what is considered such. Updating the Bottle Bill would alleviate these concerns, allowing more beverages to entire the fold and reduce unpaid labor.
The job of managing and working at a redemption center is a laborious but necessary job to help consolidate recyclable containers. It has been too long since the bill has been updated to better align with the realities of the job. The Empire State Redemption Association has setup a website to help with advocacy, with links to New York State representatives to call and demand action. Jade is one of thousands of centers across the state that is struggling to survive in a system that was enacted to tackle a problem started by the beverage industry. Call your representatives to demand that the system be updated to ensure it is able to continue.
