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People line up in 2013 to return their recyclables at the BottleDrop redemption center in Oregon City.

(Faith Cathcart/Staff)

Oregonians are said to love the bottle bill, the pioneering legislation adopted more than 40 years ago that tacks 5 cents onto the cost of most canned and bottled beverages. That affection will be tested within the next few years as two things happen. First, the deposit is almost certain to double in 2017. Second, returning containers will become less and less convenient as more and more grocery stores refuse to accept empties and steer their customers, instead, to stand-alone redemption centers.

Contributing to the strain on this relationship, meanwhile, will be the enduring attraction of curbside recycling. Oregonians would be remiss not to wonder why they must shoulder an increasingly heavy burden to perpetuate the bottle bill when they can serve the same ends - less litter, more recycling - by chucking their empties into the curbside bins for which they're paying already.

For many years, Oregonians recouped their nickels by taking their empties to the very grocery stores from which they bought them. The experience was smelly and the redemption machines often broke down, but if nothing else the chore could be tackled during a regular trip to the market.

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The store-based return model has been eroding for years, however, thanks to various legislative tweaks, including a 2007 expansion that roped in bottled water and similar beverages. That's a lot of new containers. As a result, the industry had to start looking for excess return capacity, lobbyist Joe Gilliam of the Northwest Grocery Association told a House committee Monday. Hop, skip and jump through a few more legislative sessions, and the future of the bottle bill is pretty well mapped out. And the map has many fewer redemption locations.

Oregon currently supports 11 stand-alone redemption centers, which in and of themselves are just fine. In fact, they're more than fine, as they provide an enhanced level of service, including - for a fee - the processing of recyclables dropped off in labeled bags. These centers don't exist in a vacuum, though. They are funded, in part, by grocery stores, which are getting something in return.

Large stores - more than 5,000 square feet - within a two-mile radius of each center may refuse to redeem all cans and bottles in exchange for their financial support. Those that choose not to participate must provide a level of service equivalent to that provided by redemption centers. Guess which option they're choosing.

Large stores within a slightly bigger area - between two and three and a half miles from each redemption center - may offer minimal bottle-return service in exchange for their support. Participating retailers are allowed to cap returns at 24 containers per person per day, which is a fraction of the 144 containers they'd have to accept otherwise.

More redemption centers are in the works, and each will be funded in part by big stores that want to offload bottle bill-return duties. The state's 11 BottleDrop facilities are operated by the Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative, which plans to open four per year until the number hits about 45. For each one that appears, several supermarkets will severely reduce the number of containers they must process or opt out entirely.

There's nothing nefarious or even inappropriate about this shift. Anyone who's ever returned bottles in a grubby corner of a supermarket understands the capacity challenge created by the Legislature's decision to require deposits on bottled water in 2007. That capacity challenge will become worse when the bottle bill expands again in 2018. At that point, just about every beverage container will be covered except wine, liquor and milk. Throw in the doubling of the deposit to 10 cents, which will increase the incentive to redeem containers, and it's easy to picture the lines of cars and SUVs lugging bags of empties on an entirely unnecessary trip to a redemption center.

That's right, unnecessary. About 80 percent of Oregonians live in areas served by curbside recycling. In the absence of the bottle bill, supermarkets and beverage distributors wouldn't need to underwrite an industry devoted entirely to trading cans and bottles for nickels - and, soon, dimes. Oregonians wouldn't have to pay extra at the supermarket, then jump through hoops to reclaim their money. Instead, they'd simply recycle their empties by using the bins for which they already pay.

It's so simple and economical, it might even happen someday.