Car Recycling

I always knew that cars were recycled, but not at these percentages and with such overall efficiency. It's great news, to be sure, and gives me hope that as our vehicle fleet moves toward improved mileage and alternative propulsion, that the old junkers won't continue to ruin ecosystems, rather, they can play a role in the next generation of vehicles.

Recycling Woes

As prices for commodities (definition of commodity) plummet--the example in this article is tin, which has dropped from a high of $327/ton earlier this year to $5/ton--recycling centers are facing major financial problems. The basic idea: the more raw materials are worth, the greater the profit margin recycling businesses can achieve.

The sixth commenter to the article, david b, points out a possible solution that I, in theory, support. He argues there should be a price on consumer products to cover their disposal. In other words, the consumer would pay extra in the price of a product in order to cover the eventual disposal of that product. The greener the product--one that uses recycled materials, less and/or recyclable packaging, etc--the lower the price. This would allow the market to work by incentivizing greener products by making them cheaper.

Can Deposit

In Oregon there is a 5 cent can deposit. For those of you not familiar with the process, whenever you buy qualifying beverage products--currently aluminum cans, glass bottles, plastics pop bottles, and, starting next year, bottled water--you pay 5 cents per can/bottle up front and when you bring it back to the recycling location (usually the grocery store) you get your 5 cents back. It's a cost neutral incentive program designed to increase recycling.

The problem, however, is that 5 cents may not be enough. While riding a bicycle on country roads I see dozens of cans and bottles coloring the ditch. The other day I asked my two fellow riders what they thought about increasing the can deposit from 5 cents to 25 cents. It is still cost neutral--the 25 cents up front are returned when you bring it back--but with a higher deposit people have an even greater incentive to return their cans and bottles.

Brian and Tim (the cyclists) argued that that would cause people to stop buying as many beverages, but I'm not convinced. I think about how gas has tripled in cost yet people continue to drive all the time. Would an additional few dollars in up front cost, the equivalent of one gallon of gas, cause people to slow their consumption of beer and pop, especially when they get that money back?

How about you all? What are your thoughts about increasing the can deposit? Anyone out there reading this in a state where it is 10 cents (Michigan)?

UPDATE: From Mike in comments, here is article from NYTimes Magazine that has more info about deposits. It also answered one of my questions about if a higher deposit induces higher recycling rates. In Michigan (I originally said Maine, but corrected it above) the deposit is 10 cents and there return rate is the highest in the country at 97%. Good to know.