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Halsey Street facility to supplant three East County grocery store collectors |
Source: The Gresham Outlook (Apr 19, 2010)
Oregon’s first beverage container redemption center will open this summer in Wood Village.
The Oregon Liquor Control Commission (OLCC) approved an application from the Portland-based Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative (OBRC) for the proposed center at 23345 NE. Halsey St.
When it opens this summer, the facility will redeem beverage containers of all types and brands. It marks the first time since 1971 the state has authorized a redemption-only center separate from local grocery stores.
Once opened, beverage containers will no longer be accepted at Fred Meyer, Wood Village; Safeway, Cherry Park Road; and Wal-Mart, Wood Village. Instead, the containers will be taken at the Halsey Street Redemption Center as well as smaller retailers in the area.
Accepting 200 containers per person per day, the Wood Village center will be open from 9AM to 7PM in the summer, 9AM to 6PM the rest of the year. It will also have a 24-hour drop box for credit account holders.
The OBRC sought the Wood Village location after scrapping an earlier plan to locate Oregon’s first centralized redemption facility in Gresham.
Alisa Shifflett, project manager for the recycling cooperative, praised the Wood Village location — in one of a three-suite building owned by Randy Emerson just west of the Best Western — as well suited for dropping off and sorting recyclable beverage containers.
The cooperative started looking for locations outside Gresham after controversy regarding the facility’s designation as a retail or community service.
The center will have employees to count small amounts of bottles and cans and immediately return deposit money to consumers and will have new reverse vending machines for consumers to use.
The redemption center concept stems from a change in Oregon’s bottle-bill guidelines that required individual supermarkets to collect containers on site.
For more information, visit the OBRC’s website at obrc.net.
