Recycling Rate Reaches Record 89% in State

Californians recycled a record number of beer, soft drink and wine cooler containers in the first half of 1992, bringing their recycling rate up to 89% and besting the state goal by 9%, the state Department of Conservation said Wednesday.

A dramatic increase in community curbside recycling programs, in which recyclable materials are picked up with regular garbage, is in part the reason for what department officials are calling a significant jump.

“I think it’s gangbusters,” said Edward G. Heidig, director of the conservation department. “We’re at an 89% recycling rate. In January, 1991, we were at 69%. We’ve shot up 20% in two years.”

The rate--up from 84% for the same period in 1991--is considered average nationally. Most states with bottle bills have return rates ranging from 75% to 95%, environmental activists said. Oregon and Michigan have recycling rates for beverage containers above 90%.

“California seems to be in line with other states,” said Resa A. Dimino, outreach coordinator for the Environmental Action Foundation. “It’s not out on the cutting edge of what the states are doing, but it’s respectable.”

Most bottle bills mandate that beverage containers be returned only to retailers. In California, containers with a redemption value can be returned for money to a network of 2,100 centers, ranging from drop-off centers to reverse vending machines. In addition, bottles deposited curbside can be redeemed by the collector.

Recycling for redeemable beverage containers is at an all-time high in the state, but glass containers that did not offer money back were only recycled at a rate of 12%, said Mark Murray, policy director for the environmental group Californians Against Waste. As a result, environmentalists and others are calling for expanding the California bottle bill to include refunds for drinking water, wine and liquor bottles in an effort to further spur recycling.

“The better than 80% return rate for beer and soda containers should make believers out of those that have traditionally opposed refund values on containers,” Murray said. “It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that similar refund values on wine and liquor containers would result in equally high return rates.”

Although legislation has been proposed twice to attach a refund value to wine and liquor bottles, the state’s wine industry and its trade organization, the Wine Institute, have successfully fought the effort, Murray said. The redemption value for recycled containers hikes the price of the product.

Nancy Light, a spokeswoman for the Wine Institute, contends that most wine bottles are successfully recycled through curbside programs, so there is no need for a bottle bill to include wine packaging.

Assemblyman Burt Margolin (D-Los Angeles), who sponsored unsuccessful bills to expand the program in 1990 and 1991, said Wednesday he is “making plans to introduce legislation” to potentially add wine, liquor and drinking water bottles to the current program.

Between January and June, 1992, 94% of the aluminum cans sold in California were returned for recycling, the conservation department also said in its biannual report. In addition, 78% of the glass containers with a redemption value were returned, 67% of plastic containers and 15% of all bimetal containers.