SALEM -- The cooperative behind three hugely successful bottle redemption centers hopes to soon open five new centers, including ones in Northwest and Northeast Portland.
Eugene, Medford and Bend are also being eyed for future centers, John Andersen, president of the
, told the Senate interim committee on environment and natural resources this morning.
Andersen did not specify when or specifically where the centers might open.
, Oregon City and Salem since 2010. The cooperative, backed by distributors and grocers, hopes to open four new centers a year -- one every three months -- eventually with 40 to 45 centers across the state,
.
Oregon's big grocers dislike handling the messy collection of bottles and cans returned for nickel deposits under Oregon's 1971 bottle bill. With the new redemption centers, grocers within 1.5 miles no longer need to provide bottle returns at their stores.
The south Salem center opened as a pilot project in March with an expanded, second zone. Grocers between 1.5 and to 3 miles only need to accept a maximum of 24 bottles a day, resulting in an 80 percent decline in bottle returns to those participating grocers. Meanwhile, the redemption center saw a 132 percent increase over what participating grocery stores used to collect, Andersen said.
Data from the centers shows consumers are willing to travel quite some distance to visit a center, he said. The three bottle redemption centers combined take in 7 percent of the state's returned bottles, he said, compared with 3,000 bottle return locations statewide.
"By all measures in terms of consumer convenience and consumer acceptance, we're seeing positive results," Andersen said.
The cooperative hopes to introduce a bill in the upcoming legislative session that would further expand the zones for the centers and increase from 300 to 350 the maximum number of bottles an individual can return each day.
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