California adds container return options via grants

Grants of $70 million will lead to 250 new sites for Californians to redeem used beverage containers. | Pichetw/Shutterstock

In an effort to boost used beverage container redemption access, the state of California provided nearly $70 million in grants to open 250 new redemption sites across the state.

The grants come from the Beverage Container Redemption Innovation program and will fund 37 separate projects using reverse vending machines, mobile recycling and bag-drop systems, with an emphasis on the RVMs. Slightly more than half the counties in the state will benefit from the new sites.

Supermarket chains Save Mart and Smart & Final will get more than $2 million each to install RVMs in 19 counties they operate in, and projects to modernize recycling sites in the underserved counties of Butte, Imperial, Lassen, Mendocino and Merced will also receive some funding, according to a press release.

The projects will roll out throughout 2025 and come ahead of new retailer take-back rules that go into effect in the new year under SB 1013. Starting Jan. 1, 2025, large beverage retailers in areas not served by a recycling center can either set up a system to redeem beverage container deposits in their store or form a nonprofit dealer cooperative to handle redemptions as a collective.

“Innovative ways to recycle will help more Californians cash in their beverage containers and provide recycled materials for in-state remanufacturers,” said Zoe Heller, director of the Department of Resources, Recycling and Recovery, in the release. “These new sites will make redemption as simple as feeding containers into a machine or dropping off a bag of empty containers.”

Looking forward, CalRecycle expects to provide more grants for its redemption system, including $138 million in additional redemption innovation grants, $50 million for beverage container quality infrastructure and $25 million in reusable beverage container recycling infrastructure, according to the press release.

For this round of funding, CalRecycle received 125 applications requesting a total of $218.7 million. Of those, seven applicants removed their applications and CalRecycle disqualified 79 applications, the agency noted.

A version of this story appeared in Plastics Recycling Update on Aug. 28.