Changes to Iowa’s ‘bottle bill’ have resulted in fewer places to return bottles and cans, recyclers say

DES MOINES — Two-year-old changes to Iowa’s recycling law have resulted in fewer places for Iowans to return their recyclable bottles and cans to redeem the 5-cent-per-container deposit, a group of Iowa recyclers said Monday.

A key state lawmaker said if the state recycling program struggles, the next legislative move may be to repeal the law.

Under Iowa’s recycling program, consumers pay a 5-cent deposit on most plastic and aluminum beer and soda containers. They can recoup that nickel by returning empty containers to redemption centers or retailers.

The program was created to encourage Iowans to recycle their plastic and aluminum bottles and cans. States with deposit laws have a beverage recycling rate of about 60 percent, while states without deposits have a recycling rate of about 24 percent, according to the Container Recycling Institute.

In 2022, the state repealed the requirement that grocery and convenience stores accept returned recyclables. That new law also increased the fee paid by beverage distributors to redemption centers, with the goal of incentivizing the expansion and creation of more redemption centers across the state.

Two years later, the number of state-licensed redemption centers has increased — there are 104 active, state-licensed centers, according to the state — but not enough to offset the number of grocery and convenience stores that got out of the recycling business, according to members of the nonprofit advocacy group Cleaner Iowa, which includes recycling companies.

“The (fee) increase has led to more redemption centers opening across the state, but more are needed,” Mick Barry, a former president of MidAmerica Recycling in Des Moines, said Monday at a news conference hosted by Cleaner Iowa at the Iowa Capitol.

“The unintended consequence of this bill, however, has been actually a net reduction in places to redeem your containers for consumers and citizens of the state, and thus creating a lack of convenient redemption as envisioned by Governor (Robert) Ray and Governor (Terry) Branstad when they created this law back in 1979,” Barry said.

Cleaner Iowa surveyed more than 1,000 Iowa businesses — mainly grocery and convenience stores — and found that only 8.7 percent of those businesses are redeeming recyclable containers.

Furthermore, only eight of 143 businesses contacted that still are required to participate in the state recycling law are doing so, according to the group. Leaders of the group said they believe that is because Iowans are not aware that they must file a complaint with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources before the state will investigate.

The mass exodus of grocery and convenience stores from the program has created what the group is calling “recycling deserts,” where individuals must travel to the nearest redemption center. There are 29 counties without a redemption center, according to state figures analyzed by Cleaner Iowa.

Rep. Brian Lohse, a Republican from Bondurant who was a key legislator in writing the 2022 changes into law, said if the state’s recycling program struggles under the recently enacted changes, the next step may be to repeal the 5-cent deposit.

“If this doesn’t work, I think the next step is get rid of it. It’s clearly not working across the state,” Lohse said. “If it’s not going to work, what is the next step? I think one of the options on the table has to be just repeal it. ...

“We tried to fix it. And if it’s not going to work, then that may be something we have to take a really hard look at.”

R.G. Schwarm, executive director of Cleaner Iowa and an Iowa Capitol lobbyist, noted the state recycling program’s popularity — a 2022 poll conducted by Selzer and Co. for Cleaner Iowa showed 84 percent of Iowans said the recycling law is good for the state — and said Cleaner Iowa’s survey was conducted with the hopes of providing an early snapshot of the impact of the 2022 changes to the law.

As part of those changes, a legislative committee will review the program in 2025.

“The bottle bill works, but it’s clear there are some areas that need attention, including enforcement issues,” Schwarm said in a statement to The Gazette. “We hope lawmakers will approach the 2025 fiscal review committee with an open mind and with the objectives to make the bottle bill system, that Iowans care about, better and more convenient.”

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