CalRecycle is supporting the implementation of 250 new reverse recycling spaces in 30 California counties, thanks to a $70 million grant. This is part of that state’s push to strengthen its bottle return law. These innovation grants will go to recyclers, community organizations and supermarkets.
CalRecycle, whose full name is the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery, is a state agency in California charged with managing recycling, waste reduction and resource recovery programs in the state. Its main objective is to promote sustainable practices and reduce the amount of waste that ends up in landfills.
CalRecycle oversees a variety of programs, including the one in this story, theBottle Bill: It promotes the return and recycling of beverage containers through a deposit system.
Grants exist to help pay for the upfront costs of recycling programs, specifically for recycling centers, mobile recycling, reverse vending machines or bag drop-off programs.
“Innovative ways to recycle will help more Californians get the most out of their beverage containers and provide recycled materials for the state’s remanufacturers.” assures CalRecycle director Zoe Heller in a recent statement. “These new sites will make redemption as simple as inserting containers into a machine or dropping off a bag of empty containers.”
Nearly all of those counties are getting reverse vending machines, an increasingly popular method on college campuses, stadiums and other venues for retrieving material.
In California, a bottle law state, some of those RVMs will be hosted by Save Mart and Smart and Final grocery stores in 19 counties. Each of the grocery chains will receive more than $2 million to fund the purchase and installation of the machines in 91 stores.
To date, CalRecycle has recycled 491 billion recycled cans and bottles.
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