Bottle and can recycling coming back to Sonoma

UPDATE: An earlier version of this story mischaracterized some plastics material in the recycling process. We apologize for any confusion.

A bottle and can redemption center will return to Sonoma so consumers can again turn in their empties and get back the deposit they paid at purchase time, thanks to a state-sponsored pilot program that the county’s waste management department secured.

“It is a miracle that we were even a part of the grant,” said Madolyn Agrimonti, Vice Mayor of Sonoma.

Agrimonti, the city’s liaison to Zero Waste Management – Sonoma County’s waste management agency – has been angry that Sonoma Valley hasn’t had a recycling center since 2016.

“I had to battle like a crazy person,” she said. “There are certain things I won’t let go of here.”

Sloane Pagal, Zero Waste Management program manager, secured a $1 million grant through CalRecycle, the state's waste management agency that oversees recycling and waste reduction programs, to fund a pilot program.

“We were awarded the fifth and final spot,” in the state’s program, she said.

CalRecycle created the Beverage Container Recycling Pilot Program in response to the 2017 Senate Bill 458 (SB458), which authorized the agency to approve up to five pilot projects in an attempt to find innovative models for CRV redemption centers in underserved areas. Because there was no funding mechanism attached to the bill, Assembly Bill 54 was approved in 2019 to provide $5 million in financial support.

Sonoma is not the only city that lost its recycling center – hundreds have closed across the state, close to 300 in 2020. It has created a barrier for consumers who want to return their bottles and cans for which they paid a deposit of either five or 10 cents, depending on the size of the container.

Agrimonti said some people – mostly those in the lower income bracket – rely on that money for “supplemental income.”

There are four recycling centers in Sonoma County, all along Highway 101, and two in Napa County. None are close and convenient, Mayor Logan Harvey said.

“Members of our community drive long distances to recycle their bottles and cans,” he said. For some, he said, “that’s an important piece of their income. That long distance can be a burden,” in time and the cost of gasoline to drive there and back.

The grant that Pagal wrote will place 10 recycling center kiosks throughout Sonoma County, including one in Sonoma. She has three locations settled, two in Santa Rosa and one in Healdsburg, and anticipates installation of those in the next couple of months.

Finding the right location in Sonoma Valley is a challenge, Pagal said.

While some people rely on the deposit returns, money is one of the main reasons recycling centers disappeared.

“Aluminum, glass and plastic is a commodity, it is on the market and the price goes up and down,” said Leslie Lukacs, executive director of Zero Waste. There is a lot of fluctuation in prices and they were “sinking fast” as the cost of labor was growing. The combination drove out the businesses that are in the recycling industry.

Modernizing the law

Susan Collins, president of the nonprofit advocacy group Container Recycling Institute, said the state’s bottle bill, implemented in 1987, is due for a major overhaul.

California is among 10 states in the country with bottle-deposit laws, but is the least effective at carrying out the intention of the law, which was to deter litter and encourage recycling.

“California has made it a dirty business. That is a uniquely California thing,” Collins said. “Nobody makes their customers interact with such a primitive system.”

Recycling centers in California are often in dirt lots with bins that are filthy and unsanitary. The condition of plastic is extremely important in the recycling process, Collins said. Materials that are placed in recycle curbside bins for haulers to take to material recovery centers come in contact with items such as food boxes, wrappers, and such, contaminating everything.

“You can’t unscramble an egg,” she said.

Only the most pristine containers make it to recycled beverage containers because the beverage industry – which has a very powerful lobby – refuses to use plastic that has been contaminated at some time, or bottles that once held products such as shampoo or cleaning products.

“They don’t want it going into a facility that’s going to make water bottles,” Collins said. There is potential litigation if someone were to become ill by drinking out of a container that was contaminated at one time, she said.

The PET plastic picked up from curbside recycling bins that Sonoma-based Plastics Recycling Corporation of California brokers, for example, which is material the PRCC calls “Grade B material, is used more for products such as carpets, T-shirts and Teddy Bear stuffing, she said.

“The truth of the matter when it comes to PET plastic is that, on average, 8 percent is recycled…and 92 percent is new material,” Collins said referring to curbside recycled products.

PRCC also buys and sells A Grade material that is suitable for beverages such as soda and water.

Aluminum is another product that is misunderstood by the public. There are varying levels of other metals in aluminum alloy and they are all not equally acceptable for all products.

She likened the quality of recycled products to grades of beef. “Beef is a generic term,” she said. Both filet mignon and ground chuck are beef, but there is a big difference in the cost and quality of each.

Strong deposit laws, and those that charge more for each deposit, are much cleaner systems than curbside recycling.

To ensure quality materials to make new beverage bottles, Collins said, “We need container deposit programs pretty much everywhere.”

CRI is among those pushing Sacramento lawmakers to revise and improve the bottle bill. Last week 10 organizations, including CRI, sent a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom urging him “to prioritize overhauling the current system to reposition the state’s bottle bill as a prized environmental standard-bearer, in line with the best performing deposit return systems in the world. This is a logjam that can only be solved with executive leadership.”

Sam Pearse, campaign manager at The Story of Stuff Project – another signer of the letter – said they want to see manufacturers held “more squarely responsible” for paying into managing and operating a system. Deposit return systems are “a lever” that works, and increasing the deposit amount will make a difference.

Five cents is nothing today compared to what it was in 1987 when the law was implemented, he said. Oregon is a good example of how raising the deposit rate increases the collection rate, he said, which is in the 90 percent range there as compared to California’s 60 percent.

“We need to see that deposit lever to incentivize the return process,” he said.

The current bottle bill does require retailers to accept bottle and can returns, but Pagal said there is no enforcement process in place. And while CalRecycle lists several places in Sonoma that will take back bottles and cans, she and others have tested the system and found that those stores don’t.

“I’ve called around anonymously,” and most employees of the stores don’t know that they are supposed to take back the recyclables, Pagal said.

To draw attention to misleading signs at stores such as Safeway that say they accept deposit materials, in 2017 Agrimonti took in a large bag of empty bottles to the store. The clerk who dealt with Agrimonti was confused by the event, and Agrimonti got the attention she wanted on the matter, but was unsuccessful at the time in making a difference.

“I’m not giving up,” Agrimonti said. “This benefits the people.”

She is thrilled at the prospect of having a recycling center return to Sonoma Valley. Pagal said they are still working through some details with the state on Sonoma County’s pilot program that she hopes will be a model for the rest of the state.

Ultimately the city will have an unmanned, fully automated kiosk where people can get their deposit back. Right now, for those who don’t get back their nickels they are basically paying a tax, she said.

Contact Anne at anne.ernst@sonomanews.com.