Los Angeles, CA — The nonprofit group Consumer Watchdog today praised the Newsom Administration and CalRecycle for investing hundreds of millions of dollars of the unredeemed bottle and can CRV funds into creating more convenient recycling opportunities and getting more money back to customers.

“It’s good to see the Administration engaging on getting consumers their CRV deposits back and making a big investment in more convenient redemption,” said Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog, which published several reports of the problems with California’s bottle deposit law.  “This is the people of California’s money and it’s been appalling to see hundreds of millions of dollars in unredeemed deposits sitting in a bank account collecting dust. The investment in automated technology and creating redemption opportunities in underserved areas will help right this sinking ship. Hopefully this is the beginning of a bold response by the Administration to the bottle deposit crisis.”

The Administration’s plans include money for automated technology, for serving underserved areas, and a plan to spend $100 million doubling consumer refunds.

“We support a limited period of double redemption but urge the Administration to focus the double refunds in areas that are recycling deserts,” said Court.  “There is a problem with fraud in certain counties with very high redemption rates, like San Benito, where the redemption rate is an impossibly high 106%.  People in recycling deserts deserve the extra refunds because it is so hard to find a place to recycle. Overall, this is a very positive step, but we want to make sure the money goes into consumers’ hands and not fraudsters’.”

You can find Consumer Watchdog’s reports on problems with the bottle deposit law, as wells other reports at: https://www.consumerwatchdog.org/reports
 
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