9/24/2023 0 Comments Bottle return near meMore exotic containers can sit in redemption centers for long periods.Īnd that means that the labor to sort them has been paid, along with the customer who received their refunded deposit, while the redemption center can't recover those costs until recycling companies pick them up. It takes up space, because you have to have space for these boxes to put these things, and time," Wilson added.Īnd time is no friend of the redemption centers, which don't get paid until recycling companies pick up the sorted bottles and cans. Wilson said there are hundreds of sorts, which means redemption centers have to make room for containers to hold them for pickup. It refers to the type of cans and bottles that must be collected - and sorted - into different containers so that recycling companies that collect from redemption centers can ship them for processing. If there was a dominant theme from Wednesday's hearing and briefing by Wilson, it was about sorts. We just have way too many sorts," he said. That's because the program is far more complex than what it appears: consumers simply returning their 5- and 15-cent bottles and cans at redemption centers in exchange for cash.Īnd according to Scott Wilson, director of the program at the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, it's growing in complexity along with the volume and type of beverage containers accepted in the program. If it passes, Jackson's bill would mark the second time since 2019 that that the handling fee has increased.īut few of the bottle law's supporters - and even fewer redemption center owners - believe that such a bump will be a panacea. Jackson, a Democrat from Allagash, is proposing to increase the handling fee by more than a penny and to tie future increases to the Consumer Price Index, a measurement of inflation. This means that 53 redemption centers have shut their doors since 2019," Senate President Troy Jackson told the environment committee when presenting his bill to increase the handling fee. "There are 321 licensed redemption centers in the state. An owner in Brunswick said she closed a month ago after her rent more than doubled. One former owner in South Portland got out of the business last summer citing an inability to compete with restaurants on wages. That's the extent of the interaction most have with Maine's bottle law, but increasingly people are finding that ritual to be more time consuming, or downright impossible, as redemption centers around the state close. Zale and Oliver are among the 321 licensed redemption centers in Maine that hand out cash to people who return their 5- and 15-cent bottles and cans. "I do all I can to hand out bonuses and try to help out, but the price of us not being able to pay more because we can't raise our prices and minimum wage going up, it's been a real struggle." "I think I handed out 36 tax forms last year at the end of the year for rollover employees," Oliver said. John Oliver, who operates a redemption center in Presque Isle, made the drive from Caribou to support the measure, which he hopes will provide some stability in a costly environment that's making it hard for him to compete with major retailers for workers. Zale was one of several redemption center owners who supports a bill that would increase the 4.5-cent handling fee that is key to their bottom line. She says that she and her husband have had difficult conversations about how long their business can limp along amid increased costs in electricity, heating and labor while their profits from returned bottles and cans dwindle.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |