By Teresa Thomas

Mail Tribune

Emily Knight inserted an empty plastic bottle into the reverse vending machine at Safeway on Friday.

The machine wouldn’t accept it, and a message on the screen read: “Please have store personnel shake down the right bin.”

So Knight waited in line for the second machine. When it was her turn, she inserted the bottle. Again, the machine didn’t accept it. This time, the message read, “Glass jam, call store personnel.”

“This is pretty typical,” Knight said, before giving up and heading inside to have her bottles counted.

Starting this fall, there will be an alternative for frustrated recyclers, such as Knight, who hate dealing with the lines, the broken machines and the sticky, dirty mess surrounding the beverage container recycling areas of most grocery stores.

In October, the Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative, which collects and processes about 98 percent of all containers in Oregon, will open a BottleDrop Redemption Center in Medford, replacing the redemption service available at many local grocery stores.

“Currently, there are eight BottleDrop locations (in Oregon),” said Alisa Shifflett, the state’s Redemption Center Project manager. “The ninth opens at the end of August in Redmond, and Medford will be the tenth.”

OBRC, in partnership with the grocery and beverage industries, operates and funds the BottleDrop project but is accountable to the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, which administers the Bottle Bill.

OBRC currently has its eye on a 6,900-square-foot warehouse at 1179 Stowe Avenue in Medford but is waiting for OLCC to approve its redemption center application before proceeding, Shifflett said.

Retail stores located within a 1.5-mile radius of the BottleDrop center will no longer accept returnable containers, and retail stores located between a 1.5- and 3-mile radius of the center may only accept 24 containers per person per day.

Grocery stores within 1.5 miles of the Stowe Avenue property include Albertson’s on Ross Lane, Sherm’s Thunderbird Market and Food 4 Less, Fred Meyer on Crater Lake Highway, Safeway in the Medford Center, Rite Aid, Trader Joe’s, and both Bi-Mart locations.

Several local store managers described the bottle return process as a “hassle” for employees. Currently, grocery stores have to rent and maintain the machines, clean up the mess on and around the machines, store the beverage containers until they are picked up by OBRC, and, when a can doesn’t go through, contact OBRC with the universal product code so it can be entered in the system.

The BottleDrop center will accept all glass, plastic and aluminum containers that are subject to Oregon’s 5-cent deposit. The center would be open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily during the summer and 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily the rest of the year. Grocery stores currently have a 144-container cap per customer, but the new redemption center would accept up to 350 containers per person per day, Shifflett said.

Customers can redeem their bottles and cans independently using reverse vending machines or they can ask an employee to hand count their containers (up to 50). They can pick up their cash refund at the pay station on site.

Customers also can purchase a roll of 10 green BottleDrop bags for $1.50, fill the bags and then simply drop them off at the BottleDrop center. Their refund, minus a 25-cent processing fee, will appear in their BottleDrop Account within 48 hours and can be redeemed at select retailers or at the pay station.

“There are no lines, no mess, no fuss,” said Shifflett. “We do it, and the easy drop door is accessible to our customers 24 hours a day.”

Plus, there is a wash station for customers to use in case of sticky soda spills, she added.

Currently, OBRC picks up bottles from 3,000 retail stores statewide. Shifflett said the new BottleDrop Redemption Centers should make this process more efficient.

“The purpose is to improve the redemption experience and to increase the redemption across the state,” she said.

Folks redeeming containers Friday afternoon at Safeway and the north Fred Meyer seemed to like the concept.

“I think if it’s well-maintained and efficient then it’ll be great,” said Knight, who said she makes about one trip to the reverse vending machines at Safeway per month.

“I think it would much nicer to drop off a bag full of cans. I’d probably collect a lot more before I made the trip,” she added.

James Hicks, 16, gets cans from his parents, relatives and a neighbor and redeems them at the grocery store about once a month. His parents let him keep the refund, which he uses for gas or puts in his college fund.

On Friday, two of the four machines at Fred Meyer were “out of order.” Both Hicks and his mother, who was helping him, were wearing gloves, and his mother had to call for assistance when the machine jammed.

Hicks said he didn’t mind that the BottleDrop center would be further away.

“It sounds awesome,” he said.

OLCC is giving the public until August 22 to comment on the convenience of the forthcoming redemption center. Email comments to kelly.routt@state.or.us.

Reach education reporter Teresa Thomas at 541-776-4497 or tthomas@mailtribune.com. Follow her at www.twitter.com/teresathomas_mt.