Redemption

About a month ago, I loaded three plastic bags of trash, several pieces of cardboard, two paper bags stuffed with newspapers, catalogs and magazines, and a large trash bin filled with tin cans, plastic bottles and glass into my Outback and drove to the Aquinnah town dump. After unloading my disposables into the dumpster, I looked inside to see what kinds of beer and wine my neighbors are drinking – and I was struck by the presence of so many redeemable containers at five cents each. I’m guessing that every other object in the dumpster was worth a nickel. My empty beer cans go back to the store for redemption, mainly because I want what is owed to me.

Apparently I’m not the only person who has noticed the riches abandoned to the dumpster. Our town administrator told Natalie, the dump manager, that in future no one will be allowed to climb into the dumpster because the town would be liable for any injuries. She mentioned this to me, I think, due to my unusually keen interest in all those cans.

The Massachusetts Bottle Bill was passed on June 4, 1981 over governor Ed King’s veto. In 2010, the redemption rate was 71% -- and has declined every year since the program was established. In 2022, the rate was just 38%. Clearly, most consumers simply don’t believe it’s convenient or worth the effort to collect and drag their empties back to the store. Nevertheless, Susan Collins, president of the Container Recycling Institute, says Massachusetts should adopt new policies to encourage recycling – such as increasing the redemption amount to 10 cents per can, and expanding the types of containers to include sports drinks, bottled tea, and juices.

My father owned and managed two liquor stores in Quincy, Massachusetts from the early 1950s until 2001 when he sold the business at age 79. His stories of fraud and malfeasance at the State House, usually told with winking humor, alerted me early to the ways of Massachusetts politicians. He wanted me to understand that everyone takes care of their own best interests. By slipping cash under the table to members of the state’s Alcoholic Beverage Commission, the liquor lobby, of which my father was an obligatory member, kept the big box liquor stores out of the state for years. I figure Total Wine made a better offer. So it was routine for me to suspect that someone is making money from the redemption system just the way it is – and will do whatever it takes to keep those profits streaming in.

I decided to pay a visit to Steve Bernier, who acquired two Cronig’s grocery stores on Martha’s Vineyard in 1985 and sold them recently to an employee. But he still works there during the transition. “I’m not a journalist,” I told him, “I just want to know how the redemption system works for you.” He got to the point quickly. “Five cents comes through the door for each can of Coke,” he said. “But the state requires me to install and lease redemption machines from a company called TOMRA. And the five cents doesn’t cover my expenses. We keep 2.25 cents towards the lease of the TOMRA machines, and the remainder goes to the redemption center. On top of that, the TOMRA machines break every three or four weeks.” Before I left Steve’s office, I asked him why he doesn’t carry maple walnut ice cream, which was my father’s favorite and also mine. He said he’d look into it.

So what is TOMRA? It’s a Norwegian company that had over a billion dollars in revenue in 2022. They’re known for those collection machines, and also for sensor-based sorting technology. This disappointed me. I had hoped that TOMRA was based in Boston and that its president was the son-in-law of the Massachusetts senate president. Such is my respect for my father’s memory.

In the meantime, we’re redeeming less and less of our refuse. I’ve started to wonder if we’re losing our belief in the value of redemption – the spiritual kind. Psalm 107 says, “Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story — those He redeemed from the hand of the foe, / those he gathered from the lands, from east and west, from north and south.” If I were to stop returning my redeemables, maybe it would indicate the loss of my belief in the future. On the other hand, those unredeemed beer cans in the dumpster do go to what the state calls Materials Recovery Facilities – the state itself runs nine of them, where more than 638,000 tons of plastic containers, paper, bottles, and cans go for sorting every year.

I returned to Cronig’s last weekend to do some shopping. As I passed through the soft drinks aisle, I saw an acquaintance place a six-pack of ginger ale in her cart. “Just wondering – do you return the cans to the store for the deposit?” “Of course,” she said, “I’m here twice a week anyway, so why not?”

Then, just before steering my cart toward the check-out line, I looked in at the ice cream freezer – where I found several containers of Friendly’s maple walnut ice cream. And I realized – I’ve been redeemed!