2008 Oregon campaign

The 2007 update to the Oregon bottle bill required that water bottles be included under the deposit program. It also created a task force to study and make recommendations on beverage container collection and refund matters. The task force released its findings in mid-October, 2008, with several recommendations favorable to bottle bill advocates.

Recommendations from the Oregon Bottle Bill Task Force, for the 75th Legislative Assembly

1. Create an industry-run, statewide system of 90 redemption centers
2. Expand the beverages covered to all beverages, by 2013
3. Increase the refund value to 10¢ by 2011
4. Let the beverage industry develop a system to prevent the redemption of out-of-state containers
5. Let the unclaimed deposits continue to accrue to the industry

The task force made a number of other recommendations, including:

• Creating additional bottle-bill related roles for the DEQ and OLCC
• Setting a recommended return rate of 80%
• Considering the use of incentives to encourage advanced single stream recycling, including in rural areas

The entire report of the task force (including a minority report by members who did not support all of the final recommendations) is available in this PDF [291kb].