Published November 9, 2005

ZOOM
HOLLY McQUEEN/REGISTER FILE PHOTO
Keeping busy: Brett Fife sorts cans last month at a Fort Dodge redemption 
center. Not all Iowans find these centers as convenient as taking their 
empty containers to a grocery store.
Fewer Iowa food stores accept empty cans

The state has approved nearly 150 redemption centers, but some customers say 
they are not as convenient.

By LYNN CAMPBELL
REGISTER STAFF WRITER

Iowans trying to recover their 5-cent deposits on beer, soda, wine and 
liquor containers continue to be frustrated by a move by grocery stores to 
wash their hands of the sticky mess.

"I am very frustrated with the Fareway store in Humboldt," said Donna 
Cooper, 70, of Dakota City, who said redemption is no longer easy. "It's not 
every day, and it's limited time, and I can't tell you what the hours are" 
at the redemption center where she must now take her empties.

Since January, the number of Fareway and Hy-Vee food stores that have 
legally stopped taking empty beer, soda, wine and liquor containers from 
their customers has more than doubled. Grocery stores must redeem can and 
bottle deposits unless the state has approved a nearby redemption center to 
accept containers in place of the store.

As of Sept. 29, the state had approved 149 redemption centers in 59 Iowa 
cities to take empty cans and bottles for grocery stores, according to the 
Iowa Department of Natural Resources. The redemption centers replaced 46 
Fareways and 34 Hy-Vees, compared with 22 Fareways and 12 Hy-Vees in 
mid-Jan- uary.

"Others are in the process of approving redemption centers or getting new 
ones," said Bob Cramer , president of Fareway Stores Inc. "I think there 
will be more that are approved."

The move began about a year ago.

After years of grocers attempting to scrap Iowa's 1978 bottle-deposit law, 
some Fareway and Hy-Vee food stores took matters into their own hands last 
November and began rejecting empty cans and bottles.

Cramer maintained that filthy cans and bottles pose a sanitation risk for 
food stores. "The public support for not having them in the grocery stores 
is loud and clear," he said.

In January, Fareway avoided being sued by the state by directing its 83 
stores to resume collecting empty beverage containers until they had state 
permission to do otherwise.

State officials said grocery stores are now in compliance with state law. 
However, that does little to comfort residents who are inconvenienced by the 
changes.

"They're frustrated by the lack of convenience," said Dewayne Johnson, 
executive director of the Iowa Recycling Association. "They can't go where 
they've gone the last 25 years. They like the way it was."

Some elderly residents now pay extra if they want to redeem cans, said 
Kathryn Russell, owner of R&R Redemption Center in Winterset. Instead of 
just paying $2 for a bus ride to go to and from the grocery store, they have 
to pay an extra $2 to go to and from the redemption center, she said.

"They can't do one-stop shopping," she said.

But Jerry Fleagle , president of the Iowa Grocery Industry Association, said 
the big fear that there would be an exodus of grocery stores participating 
in the bottle-deposit law has not happened.

He said state officials have been strict about which redemption centers 
they've approved to take cans in place of stores. "That's really slowed the 
process to a standstill," he said.

Russell said many of those people are now donating their empty cans and 
bottles to charitable causes, or throwing them away. Meanwhile, she said, 11 
redemption centers have closed since the end of the legislative session last 
spring.

"There was an increase in volume, increase in work, but you don't have any 
additional resources to offset the increase that you acquired," Russell 
said, referring to the penny-per-can handling fee that redemption centers 
receive.

Mike Omvig of Eagle Grove used to take his cans and bottles to Fareway, the 
only grocery store in the town of 3,712. When the store stopped collecting 
empty cans, residents were sent to a redemption center that "never had any 
money," Omvig said.

When the redemption center closed, Fareway started accepting cans again. 
However, the store limits residents to 100 cans a day in flat boxes. "You 
actually have to buy their flat boxes," Omvig said. "They won't let you 
bring them back in a sack at all."

Omvig said he and his wife have been making a 45-minute drive to redeem the 
deposit on his empty cans and bottles. "We've been taking them to Fort 
Dodge," he said.

In Des Moines, only Patterson Redemption Center at 810 Raccoon St. has been 
approved to take cans, for a Kum & Go convenience store.

Owner Larry Patterson said he faced too much difficulty trying to get state 
approval to accept cans from Fareway customers. "I just gave up," he said.


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