New data from the Container Recycling Institute showed falling beverage container redemption rates in most states with deposit return systems in 2023, which advocates said shows the need to modernize aging systems.
The decreases ranged from 1% to 4%, with only two states tallying increases: Oregon’s rate increased by 1%, and Vermont’s increased by less than two-tenths of a percent. California and Connecticut saw a 1% decrease, Massachusetts and New York a 2% decrease, Michigan marked a 3% decrease and Hawaii a 4% decrease.
Maine is so far tracking a 1% decrease, but only half of the state’s distributors have reported, so that number is subject to change. Iowa reports differently than the other states, and a different study conducted by CRI determined the state’s 2022 rate was 49%, with no data yet available for 2023.
Susan Collins, CRI president, said in a press release that although the redemption rate decreases may not seem significant, they are part of a larger trend: Since 2017, the data primarily show downward redemption rate trends, some quite steep. Between 2017 and 2023, Massachusetts saw a fall of 21 percentage points, from 57% to 36%. Michigan reported an 18 percentage point difference, declining from 91% to 73%. In Iowa, previous data showed an estimated rate of 67% in 2016, meaning it too saw an 18 percentage point decline in seven years, between 2016 and 2022.
“These trends point to the need for more deposit return system modernizations, such as higher container deposit amounts, coverage of more beverage types and additional convenient options for consumers to return bottles and cans,” Collins said. “We’ve seen some progress on this front in recent years – particularly with several program upgrades in Oregon and Connecticut’s 2021 passage of major expansion legislation – but not enough.”
Recent data supports the idea that modernized beverage container DRS programs improve redemption rates. The CRI press release noted that over the past 15 years, Oregon has increased deposits to 10 cents, added nearly all beverage types and established a robust return infrastructure, and its redemption rate grew from 73% in 2017 to 87% in 2023, the highest in the nation.
Connecticut’s 2021 program upgrades were implemented in phases, with new redemption space additions and handling fee increases in 2021, inclusion of new beverage types – including juices, tea, coffee and energy drinks – in 2023, and a deposit increase to 10 cents effective January 2024.
While many of those changes happened too recently to reflect in CRI’s 2023 data, the state’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection reported that the redemption rate increased from 43.7% in Q1 2023 to 53.5% in Q1 2024.
And in California, the addition of deposits on wine and spirits took effect on Jan. 1 of this year, and CRI estimates “this should result in more than half a billion additional containers recycled annually once consumers fully adopt the practice of returning these new containers,” according to the release.
“The bottom line is that we require modernization of several state beverage container deposit return systems and establishment of new programs in non-deposit states or – ideally – passage of a well-designed national law so manufacturers and suppliers have access to enough recycled content moving forward,” Collins said. “Upgraded and new programs also would bring the significant environmental and economic benefits we know deposit systems provide.”
Collins also emphasized that despite the falling rates, states with DRS are still performing far above those without such a system. The container recycling rate without a deposit is 26%.
Rates by material
CRI broke out the recycling rates by material per state.
Metal containers tended to have the highest rates: Aluminum UBCs had a rate of 66% in California and 62% in Hawai’i in 2023, while bimetal UBCs in Hawai’i were recycled at a rate of 70%. Oregon and Maine just reported a metal UBC category, which had recycling rates of 88% and 80%, respectively.
The next highest rates were a tossup between plastic UBCs and glass.
Glass UBCs had the next highest rate in Hawai’i and Maine, at 50% and 80%, respectively, while PET or plastic UBCs were recycled at rates of 61% in California and 84% in Oregon.
Looking at the inverse, glass UBCs had a recycling rate of 43% in California and 77% in Oregon, and plastic UBCs achieved a rate of 48% in Hawai’i and 72% in Maine.
In 2022, Iowa reported an aluminum UBC recycling rate of 42%, a glass UBC rate of 76% and a plastic UBC rate of 56%.
A version of this story appeared in Resource Recycling on August 13.
