Soda Can recycling Hillsboro (Portland, Cornelius: buying, live, price)

[souljah06]

My family is really new to the area and we have are accumulating quite a large amount of soda cans. We're from Texas and didn't recycle but would like to try to get some of our money back with these cans up here. Where should we go to do this in Hillsboro and how do we do so? The few places we've driven by or stopped by didn't have any instructions or any clear idea of what we're supposed to do, lol.

Much thanks!

[hamellr]

You take them to the grocery store. Most the big grocery stores have automated sorter/counters. Some of them can limit you to 144 cans per a visit, but the the big stores rarely do that.

Connivence stores will enforce the 144 can limit, mostly because they don't have room to hold them.

[Larry Caldwell]

You can recycle national brands, like Pepsico or Coca-Cola products anywhere. Store brands you have to take back to the store where you bought them. Large stores like Fred Meyer will have automated machines. You just feed them into a hole in this huge box and it will scan the barcode. If the can is dented, the bar code reader won't work and you have to take it to the cashier. If the bottle and can return area is not obvious, ask a store clerk where it is. I was recently in a grocery store where you had to go through a separate door inside the store to reach it.

[figmalt]

Fred Meyer has an outdoor sorter in the parking lot of the Imbrie Drive store (Imbrie/Evergreen/Cornelius Pass), but you can take them to any grocery store as previously stated.

[davemess10]

While we're on the subject, what are people's opinions about the current deposit recycling system?

Personally, I think it's ridiculous. I know some of the history, and while I applaud the area for being one of the first to begin a deposit system to get people recycling, it seems VERY antiquated now. Hasn't it been 5 cents for decades? I just can't believe that people in Portland (one of most recycling conscious cities in the country) wouldn't recycle their bottles and cans without the deposit. We don't really go through can and bottles fast at all (maybe 10-15 every month or two max) and it's just not worth it to have to go through all the hassles of feeding the machine to get back 50 cents.

And I've lived in other states with deposit, but their systems just seem to be set up more productively (NY for example, where you just bring in a bag of cans to the store, they put them on a scale and give you the money (takes all of 30 secs)).

Does anyone else feel like it's time to rethink or retire the bottle/can deposit system here?

[EnricoV]

Oregon wasn't one of the first ... the first.

I don't have any problem with the system, personally.

[Larry Caldwell]

Yeah, the deposit needs to be increased, but the cans and bottles add up. I don't recycle them myself, I donate them to kids groups, like the local band for fund raisers or the 4-H. In the meanwhile I store them in 35 gallon trash cans with plastic bag liners. When the cans are full I can just pull the full bags out and find a charity that needs them.

[lucky3809]

safeway,albertsons,fred myers just to name a few... also they only give so much per ticket if i remember correctly, but it doesn't mean you cant go back in with another one lol. after you dispose of the cans.bottles

[hamellr]

Originally Posted by davemess10

Hasn't it been 5 cents for decades? I just can't believe that people in Portland (one of most recycling conscious cities in the country) wouldn't recycle their bottles and cans without the deposit. We don't really go through can and bottles fast at all (maybe 10-15 every month or two max) and it's just not worth it to have to go through all the hassles of feeding the machine to get back 50 cents.

When they added plastic water bottles to the list of recycled bottles a couple of years ago, there was also talk of upping the deposit to ten cents at the time. That was seen as sort of high though, as it added a lot to the price of full cases.

[davemess10]

I would say that would have been a win/win. Potentially increase recycling AND deter a few more people from buying bottled water.