Cashing In on the Future of California's Bottle Deposit System

Read a transcript of this episode

When Paul Beach was a kid growing up in Maine, he remembers going to a recycling center that was part of a grocery store. He watched people walk into this large space with garbage bags full of bottles and cans. And when he noticed they were walking out with cash, he wanted in on the hustle.

“I would have like $50 in cans. It took me a while to get that much, but it was pretty good income for, like, a 10-year-old,” Beach said.

Maine and California are two states with a Bottle Bill, a law that encourages recycling for money. When Beach moved to California, where he’s lived for the past 25 years, he looked up the closest redemption center to him in Oakland and discovered it was 5 miles away. A place called Cash for Cans.

For Beach, it’s not worth storing several bags of containers in his apartment for a single trip. Instead, he puts his recyclables in the blue bin on the street.

This experience had him wondering: Where does the money go for bottle-and-can redemption if residents don’t turn them into a recycling center? And why is it so hard to recycle them in the first place?

The Bottle Bill

The money Beach is talking about is the California Redemption Value, or CRV — and it’s not exactly free. Whenever someone buys a drink from the store with the letters CRV printed on the label, they’re paying a 5-to-10-cent deposit at the checkout line. To get that deposit back, they have to recycle those containers.

This applies mostly to beverages that come in aluminum cans and plastic bottles. The whole point is to encourage recycling and reduce litter.

In 1986, the state passed the California Beverage Container Recycling and Litter Reduction Act, also known as the Bottle Bill. The law created the recycling deposit system many use today. California is also one of 10 states in the country with a Bottle Bill.

Susan V. Collins, president of the Container Recycling Institute in Culver City, calls Bottle Bills “the rock stars of recycling” because of the financial incentive behind them.

“People either hold onto their bottle and turn it in for the 5 cents, or if they do litter it, someone else picks it up and takes it in for recycling,” Collins said.

Since passing its Bottle Bill, California has had a good track record with the number of recycled and redeemed containers. One out of five beverage containers recycled in the U.S. are recycled in California, according to the Container Recycling Institute.

But recycling containers isn’t the same as redeeming them for cash. As redemption centers closed across the state, Californians were left with fewer options to redeem their bottles and cans. According to CRI, the state’s redemption rates have fallen from 74% to 60% in the past decade.

Redemption center deserts

When the Bottle Bill was passed in the 1980s it depended on California’s current recycling center infrastructure. Recycling centers were now obligated to give people back their money for bottles and cans.

Most of these businesses created partnerships with grocery stores to establish convenience for consumers looking for a place to recycle. They set up shop in the parking lots of a store much like the one from Beach’s childhood.

But when revenue started to plummet at these locations because of the falling price of scrap material, many shuttered.

Since 2013, more than 40% of these recycling centers have closed across the state. Collins said the Bay Area is the epicenter of these closures affecting a majority of people who depend on these centers for extra income.

“California has the least convenient system in the world right now because of these redemption deserts,” Collins said.

In the ’90s, San Francisco once had about 35 redemption centers scattered throughout the city. Today, there are only two and both are located in the Bayview District. CalRecycle lists about 1,200 redemption centers left in the state.

Abandoned deposits

When bottles and cans end up in landfills and not redeemed, those deposits are considered “unclaimed” by the state. This unclaimed money sits in the Beverage Container Fund, which is managed by CalRecycle. About 400 people in the state agency who work in the beverage container program are paid out of unclaimed deposits.

The money is supposed to be used to subsidize the state’s recycling infrastructure to help people get their money back. But for the most part, it stays untouched in the beverage container fund.

Some of the unclaimed deposits are paid out to redemption centers, but not a whole lot.

In California, where many rely on blue recycling bins, waste hauling companies get to cash in on the CRV money attached to those bottles and cans thrown out. Collins said only a small percentage of those recyclables are redeemed because waste haulers don’t always do a perfect job of sorting through the recycling. Inevitably, a lot of it ends up in landfill. Last year, only 13% were redeemed for CRV.

Collins said, as of last summer, the beverage container fund accumulated $672 million. She indicated that the high balance was a partial failure on behalf of the program.

Consumer advocates argue that redemption center closures and allowing waste haulers to take residents’ CRV is hurting consumers.

“It’s turned into a tax because we don’t have any place to take those bottles and cans to get those dimes and nickels back. That’s the fundamental problem,” said Liza Tucker, consumer advocate for Consumer Watchdog.

She added that working-class communities who depend on recycling to pay bills are hurting the most.

“They actually need cash. They need to fill their tanks with gas. They need to buy food,” Tucker said.

The in-lieu-fee loophole

Under the Bottle Bill, retailers that sell beverages are required to recycle those beverages if there’s no recycling center nearby. The law was designed for the sake of convenience. But California’s Bottle Bill gives stores the option of paying out of their responsibility to recycle and redeem drink containers. This is known as the “in-lieu fee,” a penalty in lieu of redeeming empty containers — a $100 fee for each day the store is not taking back recyclables.

In some cases, stores try to get away with not paying the in-lieu fees at all. In response, CalRecycle Director Rachel Machi Wagoner said, “It’s incredibly hard to ensure that retailers who say they are taking back in store or are paying the in-lieu fee, are doing exactly what they’re saying.”

Lawmakers know the system isn’t working

In 2019, the state put aside $5 million to pilot new ways to recycle and redeem our bottles and cans.

One of those pilot programs is called BottleBank in San Francisco. After downloading the app, consumers drop off their containers to any BottleBank mobile drop-off location and then their recyclables get taken to an offsite recycling center for sorting. The CRV is tallied up and the money is electronically delivered to the person’s bank account.

“Our ultimate goal for CRV is to rapidly increase how many people are redeeming. … getting more money back into people’s pockets,” said Charles Sheehan, chief policy and public affairs officer with San Francisco’s Department of the Environment.

Since the program kicked off last year, Sheehan said the department recycled more than 3 million bottles and cans and paid out about $190,000 in CRV as of this summer. There are currently 20 BottleBank sites set up around the city with many found parked outside Safeway, Whole Foods and Grocery Outlet.

Consumer advocates, however, aren’t happy with the program, saying the pilot is benefiting supermarkets more than consumers. CalRecycle lists the BottleBank sites on its website as certified recycling centers. Under the Bottle Bill, grocery stores within a certain mile radius of a recycling center don’t have to pay in-lieu fees or take back in store.

“So the minute that they approved this particular pilot, 400 stores got off the hook,” Tucker of Consumer Watchdog said.

Consumer Watchdog added that BottleBank is not recycling enough, because the sites are only open one day out of the week for several hours a day and the program is costing taxpayers too much to operate.

After analyzing BottleBank’s expenses, Consumer Watchdog asked the state’s Department of Finance to no longer fund the program.

“It is costing 79 cents to return a nickel to consumers. And it will never be sustainable,” it said in a statement (PDF).

In defense of the program, Sheehan stressed that it’s still in the pilot phase, which means making improvements while incurring costs.

“We’re growing, and as we grow we will continue to kind of bring in more revenues and bring our revenues in line with our costs,” Sheehan said.

BottleBank’s costs include renting the grocery store parking lot space for its operations, plus labor, marketing materials and transportation for the bottles and cans to the recycling facility.

According to CalRecycle, the state awarded the program $500,000 to expand their services to last until the end of the year. Sheehan said the goal is to get a total of 30 locations running with longer operating hours.

A new law could change it all

Other Bottle Bill states like Oregon have a higher redemption rate of 85%. The state has multiple ways to redeem items using reverse vending machines, bag drop programs and in-store take back. The state also utilizes the same app-based technology as BottleBank for consumers to receive their CRV electronically. They can also get a voucher to use at their local grocery store.

Starting in 2025, it’s possible that California can start looking more like Oregon. SB 1013 passed last year and it will require grocery stores with no nearby recycling centers to be responsible for taking back empty beverage containers starting in January 2025. It also removes the optional $100-a-day in-lieu fee and adds wine and spirits to the list of redemption items.

It’s considered one of the biggest improvements to the Bottle Bill ever. CalRecycle’s Director, Rachel Wagoner, added that the machinery to build this infrastructure will not be cheap.

“So if the state’s gonna purchase it, we wanna make sure that that is a long-term investment that we’re making in the recycling system,” Wagoner said.

CalRecycle is giving out more than $70 million in grant money to large grocery store chains to create this infrastructure. The agency is currently having public workshops with retailers to answer questions about the grant process. The idea is to create large-scale redemption centers with multiple ways to recycle items, while increasing the state’s redemption rate.

Still, Wagoner is optimistic that the new law will make a real difference in the number of redeemed containers. And she’s hopeful for 100% redemption.

“And even if I don’t hit 100%, let’s see how close we can get,” Wagoner said.

Collins said her organization, the Container Recycling Institute, first advocated for these changes in 2009. She added that if everything goes according to plan California could have a good system in place.

Yet Collins is skeptical about how fast those changes will come. She pointed out that multiple spending programs, and an additional budget bill, passed along with the new law may exceed the resources in the Beverage Container Fund to create the redemption infrastructure.

In a letter (PDF) asking the state’s Senate Budget Committee to reconsider how they spend the money, Collins wrote, “The complete implementation of AB 179 and SB 1013 over 6 years will cost the beverage container fund and other accounts roughly $1.3 billion.”

“We can’t have money going outta the fund to pay for things that are not bottles and cans when that money is needed to give people their nickels and dimes back,” said Collins.

Episode Transcript

This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.

Olivia Allen-Price: When Paul Beach was a kid growing up in Maine, he would go to this recycling center that was part of a grocery store. 

Paul Beach: It was a pretty big space in the grocery store. And you just bring your bottles and cans in. and they sorted them, like green bottles went here, white bottles went there, brown bottles went here.

Olivia: Paul noticed that people would walk into the recycling center with a bag of … well, garbage, essentially. And they would walk out with cash. He wanted in on the hustle.

Paul: And I would have, like $50 in cans. It took me a while to get that much, but it was pretty good income for like a 10 year old.

Olivia: That experience taught Paul the literal value of recycling. Every bottle or can was worth up to fifteen cents in Maine because of the state’s bottle bill. That’s a law designed to encourage recycling. When Paul moved to California, where we also have a bottle bill, he thought things would work about the same…but his nearest redemption center was far, so he never went … Now, he puts his items on the curb where they’re whisked away by a waste hauling company.

Paul: I am pretty sure that the company that I pay to take the recycling fishes through and gets all the cans and they get the money for the cans and bottles. // like, you’re getting paid on both sides. It’s like, this just doesn’t seem fair.

Olivia: This has all left him wondering about a few things…

Paul: Where does the money go for bottle and can redemption if we don’t bring the bottles and cans back?

Olivia: And why is it so hard to find a place to recycle them in the first place?

Music change

Olivia: In today’s episode of Bay Curious we dig into how this recycling system works and why some argue it’s seriously broken. Plus: Who’s pocketing the CRV money from California’s unclaimed bottles and cans? I’m Olivia Allen-Price. This is Bay Curious. We’ll be right back.

SPONSOR MESSAGE

Olivia: To answer Paul’s questions about bottle and can redemption in California … KQED’s Steven Rascón has been following the money. Hey Steven!

Steven Rascón: Hey Olivia.

Olivia: So Paul’s question is all about CRV. Can you explain what exactly that is?

Steven: Sure. CRV stands for California Redemption Value. And it applies to certain bottled and canned drinks you buy from the store. Anytime you buy one of these beverages with the letters CRV engraved on the lid or printed on the label, you’re paying 5-10 cents extra at the checkout line. Paying this extra charge is supposed to work like a deposit. Because once we’re done with that drink, we’re supposed to recycle it and get back those 10 cents.

Olivia: And this applies specifically to store-bought beverages… so containers of juice, coffee, water, soda …?

Steven: Exactly. This recycling system is part of a law that’s colloquially known as the Bottle Bill. We are one of ten states in the country with a Bottle Bill. Beverage containers specifically, continue to make up roughly half of roadside litter across the country. And so in the 80’s, environmentalists and lawmakers decided to do something about it in California… and pass the Bottle Bill. And recycling experts say this system works.

Susan Collins: We know that bottle bills on average, reduce beverage container litter by 50%. So we can keep some of those plastics outta the ocean if we have bottle bills in place. 

Steven: That’s Susan Collins, she’s the head of the Container Recycling Institute in Culver City California. 

Susan: The whole reason bottle bills work like magic, why I call them the rock stars of recycling, is because of the incentive that’s attached to it. because people either hold onto their bottle and turn it in for the 5 cents, or if they do litter it, someone else picks it up and takes it in for recycling.

Steven: Since California passed its Bottle Bill, the number of recycled containers has shot up. The Container Recycling Institute says one out of five beverage containers recycled in the US are being recycled in California. But…not all of those bottles and cans are getting redeemed for cash. 

Steven: And when that happens…that money just stays in what’s called the beverage container fund. A fund that’s owned by the state. 

Olivia: What is the unclaimed money in that fund used for? 

Steven: So the unclaimed deposits from those containers, the money that no one’s getting belongs to the state. CalRecycle is the state agency that manages the fund and the program. Susan says there’s a lot of work that goes into it that we don’t see. 

Susan: Cal Recycle has about 400 people who work on this program, and those people are paid out of the unclaimed deposits. That money is also supposed to be used to create more ways for recycling our items. CalRecycle gives some of that money to recycling centers who redeem our bottles and cans. Some of it goes to waste hauling companies who pick up our blue bins of recyclables.

Olivia: I know a lot of people, like our question asker Paul and myself, put our bottles and cans in the blue bin on the curb. But who gets the money for those items? Because I know it’s not me! 

Steven: According to CalRecycle, the waste hauling companies that pick up our recycling like Recology get to cash in on the bottles and cans we put in them. We’re actually the only state with a Bottle Bill where this is the case. So Paul’s right when he says waste haulers are getting paid twice. Consumer advocates, by the way, are not happy with this arrangement…

Steven: Another issue with the blue bin….is waste haulers don’t do a perfect job of sorting all the recycling. Oftentimes, food and trash will mix with the bottles and cans…and those containers that don’t get redeemed inevitably end up in the landfill. The Container Recycling Institute says only 13 percent of those bottles and cans being recycled are being redeemed for cash.

Olivia: So to recap, we’re not getting the money we throw out in blue bins and not all of it is even being recycled. It sounds like everything would be better if took things to the redemption center?

Steven: Right but If only it were that easy! Yes, redemption centers are the ideal way to recycle our bottles and cans and get our money back. But good luck finding one…

Susan: The Bay Area is like the epicenter of redemption center closures, and it’s the area of the state that has the least availability of centers and the more people dependent on each and every center.

Steven: In the 90’s, San Francisco once had about 35 of these centers scattered throughout the city, today there are only two…both located in the Bayview District. Since 2013 more than forty percent of these centers have closed across the state. 

Susan: California has the least convenient system in the world right now because of these redemption deserts. Why they’ve had to close is a whole other story, but in short – prices for recycled materials dropped so much…these businesses couldn’t survive.

Music out

Olivia: This is all pretty frustrating, and it’s about to get downright infuriating because Californians should, in theory, be able to take our recyclable beverage containers to the grocery store, just like our question asker Paul did when he was growing up in Maine.

Steven: Right. And technically it’s the law. Under the Bottle Bill supermarkets and retailers that sell beverages are required to recycle them and give us back our money. 

Susan: It should be just as easy to return your bottle or can for redemption as it was to purchase the bottle in the first place. 

Steven: But the problem is most supermarkets don’t take our bottles and cans. Only a small handful actually do. And so if a supermarket refuses to take your empty cans…then they have to pay what’s called…an “in lieu fee.” A penalty in lieu of redeeming empty containers. It’s a hundred dollar fine per day. But this penalty has become a loophole. For a lot of these stores, $100 a day is a bargain to not have to deal with CRV redemption.

Steven: Some stores try to get away without paying the in lieu fees at all. I brought this up to CalRecycle and they said “it’s incredibly hard to ensure that retailers who says they are taking back in store or are paying the in lieu fee, are doing exactly what they’re saying.” 

Olivia: It sounds like this system is very broken… 

Steven: That’s what a lot of people I spoke to have said…And as a result, with fewer ways to redeem our bottles and cans, the pot of nickels and dimes in the state’s fund just keeps growing. 

Susan: As of the end of June last year, the beverage container fund had accumulated 672 million dollars. Susan says you need some of that money to keep the program going but… 

Susan: You certainly do not wanna have a fund balance that’s close to 700 million that indicates a program partial failure.

Steven: And that …five or ten cents… extra you pay. Consumer advocates say this might not seem like a big deal for some people.

Liza: The sort of middle class, upper middle class. You know, a lot of them aren’t even aware they’re paying bottle deposits when they go through the line. Um, you know, they’re not even aware. 

Steven: That’s Liza Tucker, an advocate with Consumer Watchdog who’s written several reports on the state’s recycling and redemption system.

Liza: There are a lot of people in the state of California who actually depend on that money. They actually need cash. They need to fill their tanks with gas. They need to buy food. 

Steven: But if we can’t redeem, we lose money.

Liza: It’s called a refundable deposit because that’s what it’s supposed to be. It’s not supposed to be a tax, but it’s turned into a tax because we don’t have any place to take those bottles and cans to get those dimes and nickels back. That’s the fundamental problem. And so we’re looking at a situation where the system. Is imploding.

Olivia: This sounds like a huge mess. Has anyone tried to fix this?

Steven: Lawmakers know the system isn’t working like it’s supposed to…So in 2019, the state put aside 5 million dollars to pilot new ways to recycle and redeem our bottles and cans.  

Steven: One of those pilots is now operating in San Francisco. It’s called Bottle Bank. It works through an app on your phone. And you have to have an account in order to recycle with them. The app lists their locations and hours. So I grabbed whatever bottles and cans I could find in my apartment…

Sound of collecting of bottles and cans
Steven in scene: There’s probably like 35 cents in here. 

Steven: And I went to one of their busiest locations outside a Safeway by the beach…to see how their operation works and if I could get some CRV.

Steven: “Hello? Hi. How’s it going? Good. Good…Look at all these bags.”
Jon Jon: Yeah. Bottles and cans.
Steven: Are these all, all, all from today?
Jon Jon: Yes. the morning shift already got about 50, 30, 50 bags.

Steven: That’s a Bottle Bank attendant, his name is Jon Jon, he’s collecting bags…. But  these aren’t just your typical trash bags… these blue colored garbage bags have a QR code on them that connect to your Bottle Bank account on your phone. Jon Jon takes my bottles and cans and throws them into one of these bags. 

 Jon Jon: And then scan every bag

Steven: He scans the QR code on the bag…

Sound of machine beeping

Steven: Then he scans the app on my phone. The bag of cans is now linked to my Bottle Bank account. 

Jon Jon: After this day we bring it to the facility and they will process it.

Steven: My bag along with the other bags of the day will be taken to an offsite recycling center for sorting. This is Jim, he’s another Bottle Bank attendant.

Jim: It distinguishes the material type as well as the size of the container and its value. When we process the bottles and cans. The money goes electronically into the Bottle Bank account. 

Steven: And after three days, I had about a dollar in my account…

Steven: San Francisco officials who run the program are proud of it. Here is Charles Sheehan, He’s with San Francisco’s Department of the Environment and head of the program.

Charles: I think it’s kind of brought bottle and canned recycling into the modern age, if you will.

Steven: As of this past summer, the department said it recycled more than three million bottles and cans and given out about $190,000 in CRV.

Charles: When we think about what our ultimate goal is for CRV, is like, to rapidly increase how many people are redeeming, you know, who is redeeming, getting more money back into people’s pockets.

Steven: But Liza from Consumer Watchdog says the pilot is not recycling enough because the Bottle Bank sites are only open-one-day-a-week…only several hours a day in select locations. And it’s …costing taxpayers too much to operate. 

Liza: We are advocating strongly not to finance the mobile experiments because they aren’t penciling out.

Steven: After analyzing Bottle Bank’s expenses, Consumer Watchdog asked the state’s Department of Finance to no longer fund the program. Saying, quote: “It is costing 79 cents to return a nickel to consumers. And it will never be sustainable.”

Steven: These costs include renting out the grocery store parking lots where they’re taking bags. Labor, materials, and transporting the bottes to the facility. But Liza says the biggest problem with  Bottle Bank is it’s allowing grocery stores in the city to refuse people’s empty bottles and cans… benefiting supermarkets more than consumers.

Liza: So the minute that they approved this particular pilot, 400 stores got off the hook.

Steven: That’s cause under the Bottle Bill…if a grocery store is within a certain mile radius of a recycling center then, the store doesn’t have to recycle or redeem any of our bottles and cans…and they don’t have to pay the in lieu fee. 

Liza: Because a stipulation behind all of these pilot programs is that when they say yes to a pilot is in an underserved location it automatically absolves all the supermarkets in the area from either having to take back in store because there’s no redemption center or pay that a hundred dollars a day.

Steven: In defense of the program, Charles Sheehan stresses they’re still in the pilot phase, which means making revisions while incurring costs. 

Charles: We’re growing. Um, and as we grow, you know, we will continue to kind of bring in more revenues and bring our revenues in line with our costs. 

Steven: According to CalRecycle, the state just awarded 500 thousand dollars to expand the program. Sheehan says the goal is to get up to 30 locations running with longer operating hours. Meanwhile, Liza says, the tech Bottle Bank is using isn’t new.
 
Liza: It’s already proven technology. This is not innovation, quote unquote. All of this is about access to redemption. The more convenient it is, the bigger the volume is of what you take in, and then you’re covering costs and making some money.

Olivia: We’re one of ten states with bottle bills. Are other states having more success with their programs?

Steven: Absolutely. According to the Container Recycling Institute…we have a redemption rate of 60 percent. In comparison, Maine and Oregon have redemption rates of 80 to 90 percent. In Oregon there are supermarket sized redemption centers near grocery stores with multiple ways to recycle…seven days a week sometimes 24 hours a day. Here’s Susan Collins again.

Susan: You can take your containers inside and they have banks of RVMs. 

Steven: RVMs or reverse vending machines…are kiosks with slots in them for you to drop your items. 

Susan: Or if you have a small number of containers, I think if it’s under 50, you just go straight to the front counter and say, count my containers and give me my money. 

Steven: You can also drop your items off in a bag where they’re counted later…and Oregon uses the same technology as Bottle Bank…so if you want the money delivered electronically on your phone you can do that too or get a voucher and use it towards your groceries.

Susan: So that’s why there’s a contrast between what’s going on in San Francisco. San Francisco does not have all of those locations, does not have all of those layers. And does not have locations that are open for a huge number of hours every week.

Steven: But it’s possible…that we could start looking a little like Oregon. A law passed last year says that starting in 2025…large grocery stores will no longer have $100 a day in lieu fee option. So they will truly be responsible for redeeming our bottles and cans. The idea is to create large scale redemption centers with multiple ways to recycle and redeem items.

Susan: The retailers have to establish a convenience infrastructure that is equivalent to what it would be if they had, you know, in-store  takeback.

Steven: CalRecycle is giving out more than 70 million dollars in grant money to large grocery store chains to create this infrastructure. It’s considered one of the biggest improvements to the Bottle Bill ever, and CalRecycle’s director Rachel Wagoner says this is a serious investment.

Wagoner: This machinery isn’t inexpensive to buy upfront. Right. So if the state’s gonna purchase it, we wanna make sure that that is a long-term investment that we’re making in the recycling system. In addition to the new infrastructure, the new law will be adding wine and spirits to the list of redemption options for 25 cents a bottle.

Steven: Wagoner is optimistic that the new law will make a real difference in the number of redeemed containers, taking our current redemption rate from 60 percent to a hundred.

Wagoner: And, uh, even if I don’t hit a hundred percent, let’s see how close we can get.

Steven: And Susan is also optimistic…

Susan: If everything goes according to plan. We could have a really good system in California.

Steven: But she is skeptical about how fast the changes will come. She says her organization first advocated for these changes back in 2009. 

Susan: And it happened in 2022. I also know that if we advocate for something strongly enough and long enough that eventually it will come to pass. 

Steven: I reached out to Paul, our question asker, and told him how most of the money from unredeemed deposits just sits in the beverage container fund…because most of the redemption centers have closed. We pulled up a map of Oakland and found that the nearest redemption center to his home was more than five miles away. 

Steven:  I’m curious, I wanna get your thoughts on that. Is that feasible? What do you think?

Paul: I live in a small condo and for me there’s a headache associated with storing a whole separate bag full of cans, like, I’m not gonna go for like two or three cans.

Steven: But Paul likes the idea of redeeming bottles and cans at supermarkets…  

Paul: I would go to the grocery store to go shopping where I could return my can. So for me it’s an incentive to go shop at their store. 

Steven: Maybe someday soon Paul will once again be able to head to the grocery store with a bag of cans, and come home with a little cash in his pocket.

OUTRO

Olivia: That was producer and reporter Steven Rascon.

Olivia: Longtime listeners will know this isn’t our first rodeo talking about how recycling works and sometimes doesn’t. Find links to more episodes in our show notes. 

Olivia: As you probably know by now, we are in a fundraising period, but I wanted to point something out… People ask me all the time how they can get their hands on some Bay Curious swag. And usually the answer is: You have to get on the show and we send you a thank you item for participating. But right now, you can get your hands on one of our thick, luxurious, Bay Curious beanies — which I’ll add are legendary among the question askers who’ve received them. All it takes is becoming a KQED member. Visit donate.kqed.org/podcasts to learn how and stay toasty with us all winter long. Or, if you don’t need a new hat, you can choose from lots of other great gifts at donate.kqed.org/podcasts. Thank you. Seriously! Thank you.

Olivia: Bay Curious is made by Amanda Font, Christopher Beale, and me, Olivia-Allen Price. Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan and the entire KQED family. Have a wonderful week.