Michigan’s 10-cent beverage bottle and can deposit program was once the envy of the recycling nation, boasting a return rate above 95%.
But in recent years it has slumped badly. The state shut down bottle return centers during COVID-19, and deposit redeemers’ behavior seems to have changed. Bottle and can deposit redemption rates fell to just 70.4% in 2024, down 18.3% since 2019.
There are multiple factors in that slump: those dimes back just don’t go as far as they did decades ago, and there is ease in just putting bottles and cans in curbside recycling. But the process of deposit redemption at local grocery stores probably doesn’t help — feeding those cans and bottles into a reverse vending machine one by one.
The company behind those supermarket machines, TOMRA, is trying something new in Michigan to end the bottle and can return slump: a machine where all the bottles and cans can be dumped in at once.
“The idea is to get everybody their money back and to make it as easy as possible to recycle and return your cans and bottles,” said Michael Noel, public affairs director for TOMRA, an international recycling and reuse technology and services provider based in Michigan in Wixom.
The machine, called the TOMRA R1, was introduced in Scandinavia two years ago and in other bottle and can deposit states about a year ago, he said. With the help of state funding seeking to bolster the Michigan deposit program, the machines are, without fanfare, being test-run at two Meijer stores in Michigan: in Waterford since October 2024, and in Wyoming in west Michigan last month.
With the TOMRA R1 machines, a bottle and can redeemer opens a large lid and dumps their full bag of plastic bottles and aluminum cans — no glass bottles for this machine — closes the lid, presses a button, and the machine starts sorting the receptacles and counting the deposit dimes.
“People just watch as the machine counts up the containers; you can see your refund money go up before your eyes,” Noel said.
A rejection chute on the side returns bottles and cans with a faulty bar code or from beverages that the store doesn’t take.
The machines have proven popular, based on TOMRA’s observations. In fact, they’ve observed people in the two stores’ bottle rooms waiting in line to use the bulk sorter R1 rather than the traditional, one-can-at-a-time machines nearby.
“We’ve gotten just tons of positive feedback,” he said. “In Michigan, where people are more familiar with that single-feed reverse vending machine, my impression is that it’s kind of blowing people’s minds — like wow, this is just way easier. I don’t have to get my hands sticky, and it kind of does the work for me.”
The trial balloon machines were enabled by a $1 million appropriation TOMRA received from the Michigan Legislature in the fiscal year 2024 budget. The appropriation, administered through the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy, runs through December 2026, EGLE spokesman Jeff Johnston said.
“EGLE supports efforts to make recycling easy and convenient for all Michiganders,” he said. “Whether returning containers for deposit or recycling them curbside or at drop-off centers, the benefit is the same: keeping those materials out of landfills and in the recycling stream as part of Michigan’s growing circular economy.”
The Waterford Meijer R1 machine has taken nearly 3.4 million bottles and cans since its 2024 installation, returning about $337,000 in deposit money to users. The Wyoming machine installed in late December is already nearing 300,000 beverage containers accepted, Noel said.
Will the new machines lead to more recycling and a path to turning around Michigan’s bottle and can deposit redemption decline? That’s the question whose answer decides whether the machines become more common in Michigan.
“At this point, it’s just seeing the public’s reaction,” Noel said. “It’s testing out, do we really see more people participate? Do we see more containers returned at these two stores? And then it’s just about having a conversation with the Legislature and other stakeholders in the system.
“This technology exists in other states. It is easier for other states to return their cans and bottles. They would require some additional investment in the bottle deposit program in order to bring these to more locations. They are more expensive than your typical, traditional reverse vending machine. And the conversation is about where does that reinvestment come from?”
By state law, those 10-cent bottle and can deposits that aren’t redeemed, money known as escheat, is sent to the state Department of Treasury, with 25% of the money returned to retailers collecting the containers and 75% given to EGLE’s Cleanup and Redevelopment Fund for environmental remediation and pollution prevention. Some $1 million is also earmarked for a Bottle Bill Enforcement Fund to enforce against scams such as bringing in bottles and cans in bulk from other states and redeeming them for Michigan’s dime — a gambit made famous in an episode of the sitcom “Seinfeld.”
With fewer depositors getting their dimes back, the unclaimed redemption money is spiking. The amount of escheat was as low as $33.8 million as recently as 2017. It was $116.4 million in 2024.
“There is more unredeemed dime deposit revenue out there,” Noel said. “Should we reinvest a portion of that into increasing convenience and innovation in the program, or does it come from some other source?”
Contact Keith Matheny: kmatheny@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Bottle, can redemption machine allows for dumping whole bag at once
Reporting by Keith Matheny, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
