A University of Michigan report offers recommendations to modernize the state's bottle bill and can refund program to combat sagging return rates
Study: A Comprehensive Evaluation of Michigan's Bottle Deposit System (DOI: 10.7302/27516)
Michigan has long been a leader when it comes to recycling in the United States, thanks in part to its so-called "bottle bill" that established a 10-cent deposit on carbonated drink containers.
But the state is coming off a year that saw an all-time low percentage of eligible bottles and cans returned since the bill's implementation in 1978.
There are, however, ample opportunities to reverse that trend, according to a new report by the Center for Sustainable Systems, or CSS, at the University of Michigan.
Accomplishing that would help reduce waste, support a circular economy and meet the state's broader sustainability goals, but realizing that change will require modernization, the report said.
"Recycling is complicated, especially moving forward," said CSS co-director Shelie Miller, a senior author of the report. "When we talk about the bottle bill, it's a 50-year-old law and a lot has happened since it went into place."
The report, funded by the Council of the Great Lakes Region, or CGLR, identifies several opportunities that could help accomplish this modernization. That includes upgrading recycling technology and offering new return options for consumers to improve convenience. The report also highlights a potential source of funding that's not currently used to support recycling-the millions of dollars made up of unclaimed deposit dimes.
"Long-standing policies can serve communities well, but to remain effective they must evolve with changing needs and priorities. At CGLR, we believe modernizing key systems-like deposit return programs-is essential not only for Michigan, but for the health and sustainability of the entire Great Lakes region," said Lora Shrake, interim executive director of CGLR. "By updating these policies to improve outcomes and reinvest resources strategically, we can drive progress toward a stronger regional circular economy."
The bill and the will
Michigan's bottle bill-officially the Michigan Bottle Deposit Law-has long enjoyed support from Michigan voters and consumers. In fact, in 1993, Michiganders returned nearly 100% of eligible containers to reclaim their deposits.
Although that rate has ebbed in the time since, it remained healthy and was at 89% in 2019, before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Of the 10 states with bottle deposit programs, Michigan was the only one to completely close its recycling return centers as a public health measure. After the centers reopened, however, return rates dropped significantly, hitting an all-time low of 70.4% in 2024.
"Michigan had one of the highest rates in the country for decades. In the 2010s, it started to taper off, but it was still incredibly strong," said Miller, who is also a professor at the U-M School for Environment and Sustainability. "One of the things we've seen in Michigan is that we haven't rebounded to the extent of pre-pandemic levels. There's no study that says exactly why that is, but, anecdotally, it's that people got out of the habit."
To understand the state of and outlook for Michigan's bottle-and-can recycling at this moment, the research team analyzed available recycling data and interviewed stakeholders throughout the beverage sector. That included consumers, retailers, beverage distributors, recyclers, policymakers and environmental groups.
"Our goal with this study was to move beyond the numbers," said Tamanna Sengupta, a graduate student researcher at CSS and lead author on the study. "By examining why redemption rates are falling, benchmarking Michigan's system to other bottle bill states in the country, and hearing directly from stakeholders, our aim is to provide a road map for keeping the program effective and resilient in the years ahead."
The research culminated in a day-long workshop to discuss opportunities and challenges for the future of the bottle bill.
"Understanding the qualitative piece and how people are experiencing the system, I think, is where we added a lot of value," Miller said. "Convening and interviewing the stakeholders really let us understand what the pain points were and what they saw the opportunities to be through their individual perspectives."
Opportunities for greater returns
The researchers found that the bottle bill still has broad support in Michigan despite sagging return rates. The team's interviews revealed that one of the big obstacles standing in the way of consumers returning their containers is that getting the deposits back isn't as convenient as people would like.
For example, retailers are required to refund deposits only on bottles that they sell. Consumers often accumulate returnables from a number of retailers and would likely return more if there were universal return centers, or single locations where they could return all of their deposit-eligible containers.
Another related insight revealed by the report is that larger retailers saw higher return rates than smaller retailers. These larger stores tend to have more resources they can put into their recycling areas to make the experience better for consumers, Miller said. For example, the stores have enough space to separate their recycling areas from the shopping areas and they have dedicated staff that can help clean and maintain the area.
"Some of the biggest issues are space, hygiene and labor," said Miller, who noted that larger retailers are more likely to be able to build new stores or renovate old ones to have dedicated, deliberately planned return areas.
"Then you have a lot of older stores that have older infrastructure and they'll have the can rooms right at the beginning of the store," she said. "They can sometimes have issues with funkiness right where you walk in and that isn't pleasant for customers."
Smaller retailers are also less likely to be able to afford the reverse vending machines that customers feed their bottles and cans into, one at a time, to get their deposits returned. These machines also might not make sense for small volume stores.
Helping smaller retailers invest in technological upgrades like these is thus another opportunity to boost return rates, Miller said. Of course, developing and implementing solutions like these takes money.
That's a lot of dimes
When there's a complex system with many stakeholders, the issue of who pays for improvements can quickly become contentious. But virtually all of the stakeholders interviewed for the study agreed on a common potential source: the unclaimed deposits from unreturned containers, or escheats.
Currently, these unclaimed deposits, which total in the tens of millions of dollars yearly, are allocated according to two amendments to the bottle bill, one made in 1989 and the other in 2021. Together, they provide $1 million annually to the state police to enforce the bottle bill. Of the remainder, 25% is distributed to retailers and 75% goes to a state fund that's used for environmental clean-ups and pollution prevention. Nothing is currently invested in recycling, but there's an appetite to change that.
"There is, across stakeholder groups, a strong feeling that unredeemed deposits should get reinvested in recycling in the state," Miller said. "We have this pool of money that has actually gotten larger since the pandemic-because as recycling rates go down, those funds go up-and none of that is being specifically rededicated to modernizing or improving recycling."
Though it's hard to track what happens to bottles and cans that aren't returned, there is evidence suggesting that more of those recyclables are ending up in curbside recycling bins, Miller said. The material recovery facilities that collect these recyclables don't get to return them for a deposit, but the material itself, especially the aluminum in cans, has value for these MRFs.
There is, however, room for bottle deposits and curbside programs to coexist alongside each other. Aluminum returned through the bottle bill is often cleaner and higher quality than the single-stream recycling processed by MRFs, and many communities in Michigan do not have access to curbside recycling. But that also means improving recycling efforts across the state are not one-size-fits-all, underscoring Miller's earlier assertion: Recycling is complex.
"Getting individuals from different stakeholder groups together in the same room hopefully brings us one step closer to realizing the opportunities that exist to improve our recycling infrastructure," Miller said.
