An unexpected problem arose on the road to a better recycling future in California. Buying centers disappeared.
Those who only recycle through their curbside programs may not have noticed, but many people need their California Redemption Value, or CRV, money back, and many more see easy buyback recycling as a matter of basic fairness.
The 5 to 10 cents we pay per bottle or can was not intended as a tax. It should be available as a payment to consumers who choose to sell back their recyclables. If recycling works well and recycling centers compete for sales, customers may even receive an additional payment for the scrap value.
However, much has changed since the 1986 passage of California’s “bottle bill,” as Assembly Bill 2020 is known. A key change is that supermarkets are more sensitive to neighbors’ complaints and less tolerant of the litter, odors and customer base that come – sometimes unfairly – with operations that sort recyclables on site and pay people in cash.
A new technology offers hope that recycling centers can overcome these problems and be welcomed back into grocery store parking lots and perhaps even community centers and government building parking lots. The new technology includes machines guided by artificial intelligence that count and sort recyclable materials delivered in mixed bags, assign the appropriate CRV payment to the person who delivered the material and credit the consumer’s electronic account.
Customers attach identification tags to bags, which they drop off in secure, locked structures or temporary, staffed trailers. Companies then pick up the bags, transport them to processing locations and use the AI vision technology to identify CRV material, sort it and post payment to accounts corresponding to the tags.
The entire footprint for both the temporary daily-use buyback trailers and the solar-powered drop-off structures is little more than one parking space. But for now, grocery stores and other traditional recycling buyback locations are still suspect. Potential site owners are reluctant to sign up for the new recycling initiative.
To spur the process, the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery, CalRecycle, awarded innovation grants to companies trying to set up the new sites in several locations where buyback recycling was not possible, including Ventura County.
One of those companies is CRV Recycle Center Inc., which has conventional buyback centers in Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks. The company plans to collaborate with Recycletek, a supplier of the new recycling technology. Recycletek has been operating these clean and innovative centers with secure transactions in the Bay Area since last year.
Conditionally awarded projects only have until November 25 to verify agreements with sites looking to host new drop-off sites. Because the initially proposed recycling locations are not responding as hoped, CRV Recycle Center and its supplier, Recycletek, are seeking alternative locations within the same unserved areas proposed in their grant application.
These alternative locations include local government properties.
“Public agencies know how important recycling cans and bottles is, not only for the environment and to comply with state mandates, but as a public service. The people served by the city want their redemption value back, and it is a public service to help your constituents get this money,” said Maria Khachiyan, owner of the CRV Recycle Center locations in Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks. “That’s why we’re asking cities and provinces if we can use public parking lots at town halls and community centers for recycling one day a week.”
A demonstration of Recycletek technology will take place during Ventura County’s America Recycles Day event on Nov. 15, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., at the Ventura County Government Center Service Building, 800 S. Victoria Ave., Ventura.
Although Recycletek will not be purchasing back cans and bottles during this event, the public is invited to drop off electronics for recycling at another supplier. Electronics does not include devices or batteries. While supplies last, visitors can receive two free pre-filled bags of mulch per person, made by Peach Hill Soils of Somis and provided by the county Public Works Department.
David Goldstein, an environmental resources analyst with the Ventura County Public Works Agency, can be reached at 805-658-4312 or david.goldstein@ventura.org.
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Eco Tip: New technology could revive buyback recycling
