On Tuesday, RCRC spearheaded a local government effort calling upon the Legislature to make several changes to increase consumer access to beverage container redemption opportunities. California’s Beverage Container Recycling Program is built upon a consumer deposit system in which it should be easy for consumers to get their deposits back (consumers pay the deposit at the time of purchase). With the closure of many certified recycling centers, beverage container redemption opportunities do not exist for many Californians. Over half of California’s counties have five or fewer recycling centers, with three counties having no centers, seven having a single center, and six having only two centers. Without convenient redemption opportunities, the Beverage Container Recycling Program can easily become a regressive tax that disproportionately impacts lower-income Californians.
Among the immediate actions RCRC urged the Legislature to adopt are:
- Devoting additional funding to open/reopen recycling centers in rural and underserved areas.
- Authorizing CalRecycle to provide additional flexibility to redemption centers, including hours of operation, daily load limits, and allowing use of appointments.
- Allow the Director of CalRecycle to increase payments to recycling centers in rural and underserved areas to account for the higher transportation and recycling costs of recycling and transportation.
Additionally, RCRC submitted letters to the Assembly and Senate Budget Committees supporting a CalRecycle proposal to expand the number of beverage container recycling pilot projects and extend the duration of the program. In its letter, RCRC suggested many of the same programmatic changes noted above. Coupled with slight program changes, increasing the number of pilot projects could help increase the ability for rural Californians to get their beverage container deposits back.