(123RF)

Oregon beverage distributors who are members of the Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative have a problem. Too often, they say, they’re being asked to give deposit refunds on bottles sold outside Oregon, where no deposit is required. That’s money out of their collective pockets, and that’s not supposed to be how the system works.

State Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scappoose, whose district borders the Columbia River and Washington state from the coast almost to Portland, has introduced a bill she hopes will correct the problem. If Senate Bill 522 becomes law, it will make returning 25 or more out-of-state bottles a day in Oregon a violation punishable by a fine of up to $250.

The state’s 10-cent deposit is among the highest in the 10 states requiring deposits. It jumped to a dime from a nickel per container in July 2017, in an effort to boost redemption, and it has had the desired effect. The Bend redemption center, for example, accepted a bit under 10 million glass bottles, aluminum cans and plastic bottles in the third quarter of 2017, the first after the increase. By the third quarter of 2018, that number had jumped to about 13 million glass, plastic and aluminum containers.

Some of the increase comes from an expansion of the kinds of containers on which deposits must be paid, to be sure. As of January 2018, most containers of all beverages but wine, spirits, dairy, infant formula and milk substitutes also require deposits.

And some apparently is coming from across state lines. In Vancouver, for example, glass recycling fell by nearly 10 percent at the same time Oregon’s refund increased. At least one distributor has a unique barcode on his products that identifies where they came from. Too, redemption rates have doubled in areas along Oregon’s borders.

Those out-of-state bottles cost the recycling coop money that it shouldn’t be required to pay. Johnson’s measure may not erase the problem entirely, but it should help, and it should be approved.