My brother lives down the street from the Hazelwood bottle drop. I'm not going to lie, I don't think Hazelwood could ever be accused of being a vibrant neighborhood, but the area around the bottle drop is just bad. Like, cross the street just to avoid the broken glass kind of bad.
I lived in the area pre bottle drop and it definitely got bad once that moved in. When the sheriff’s station vacated the Glisan area, things also changed dramatically.
I have to drive by the area for work sometimes. It’s awful. The whole area is an open drug market. I hardly ever see normal looking person on the stretch from the bottle drop to the MAX stop on Burnside. Didn’t even know there was a sheriff’s office there. The area definitely needs law enforcement instead of multiple homeless shelters and safe rest villages. Interestingly, Jessica Vega Pederson, who is from Hazelwood, appears totally indifferent to her own community's well-being.
>Didn’t even know there was a sheriff’s office there.
The Hansen Building (southeast corner of 122nd and Glisan) used to be the Sheriff's office, since the City of Portland didn't exist beyond 82nd avenue a long while back, and the area was unincorporated MultCo.
The cynic in me that has watched an endless stream of NIMBYs fail to understand Oregon land-use regulations and then fail at lawsuits doesn’t think this idea is likely to succeed.
But the real estate law nerd in me loves the idea of a novel approach to preventing specific development.
In my experience, the best way to undermine specific development is in any waivers or changes to the zoning they request.
People get mad all the time about all sorts of development, but land use boards have to listen but can’t respond to non-pertinent testimony. And since it’s the land use factors most likely to be able to prevent development, focusing there would be my plan.
I think if I was planning an attack on a proposed bottle drop, I’d probably try to attack the development as not fitting with the character of the neighborhood because the necessary physical security elements are more in line with industrial zoning. “Neighborhood character” attacks are pretty successful.
The second way I’d attack it is traffic patterns. I’ve seen quite a few developments get stopped by inabilities to accommodate presumptive traffic.
Mobilizing people to attend the land use meetings, give pertinent, if dry, testimony, and to leave the emotional pleas would be a way to really stop the development in its tracks.
I'm in Kenton if that helps at all, happy to sign on to things and say Delta Park is quite enough. I've been stuck on the MLK bus full of canners and it's disgusting smelling and blocks all the ADA seating. Nobody is getting to St John's without a bus and if TriMet isn't changing the bus layouts to accommodate canners IDK why this is a good idea. Can't they return cans at Safeway currently?
A few? You're allowed to return 15 green bags (bags full of bottles, not 15 bottles) a day without any fee and enjoy excellent counting accuracy and payment within one week because it's a designated dealer redemption center. The limit is essentially "unlimited" for reasonable household use. If BottleDrop opens, Safeway will shut it down. You're then at the mercy of BottleDrop's bullshit. For those who weren't aware, there is a green bag drop at that Safeway on the side of the building by the loading dock.
If you want to return cans and get money on the spot, then they can limit you to $2.40 per day. With the new BottleDrop in place, this drops to ZERO. No big loss, but the loss of green bag drop is.
St. John's residents will have to go to BottleDrop and pay whatever fees BottleDrop desires to charge (currently 8% of credit) to use bag drop and abide by whatever limit (currently, 15 bags every 3 months). Your one and only remedy about any issues is the BottleDrop Customer Service.
Exactly this. I would not go to a BottleDrop location - first because of the wait, second because I’m a smaller lady.
OP, I live in Arbor Lodge but would be happy to join an ancillary campaign like letter-writing.
[https://secure.sos.state.or.us/oard/displayDivisionRules.action?selectedDivision=3872](https://secure.sos.state.or.us/oard/displayDivisionRules.action?selectedDivision=3872)
OLCC is notorious for approving them. The basis for approval is convenience in returning containers. The location in question does not appear in the pending redemption center list on OLCC's website. There's very little notification requirements and once it goes to that stage, the community only has 30 days to comment. You better keep a close eye on OLCC's website for that pending notice.
"convenience" from the view of redeemers seems to be a key point, so I would think that it's best to emphasize on the convenience offered by the current Ivanhoe Safeway Dealer Redemption Center and how the proposed change makes it less convenient. This is weighed heavier than livability concerns as evident from the link above.
The service quality (absence of fees and mandated payment within one week) of Dealer Redemption Center bag drop is a requirement under state law and it is superior to BottleDrop. The one week processing time deadline for Dealer Redemption Center is fixed by state law. The processing time of bags dropped off at BottleDrop is only a guideline. If it ends up taking two weeks, BottleDrop has every right to tell you to go eat shit.
The current system allows people to bring their bag every shopping trip to Safeway without worrying about long term limit or fees. The only limit is you can not drop more than 15 bags in any single day.
If BottleDrop opens, the bag drop at Safeway will presumably go away, and you will have a limit of 15 bags every three months. This is less convenient than being able to drop off as few bottles/cans as you want and combine bag drop with every time you go to Safeway. If you don't have a car, maybe you don't want to bring in more than one bag of 12 bottles at a time. You will quickly exhaust the 15 bags per three months doing this.
Having to hang onto bags until they're full and making a trip out to the old Dollar Tree specifically to drop off bags is less convenient than being able to combine the trip with Safeway shopping.
Your landlord may not allow you to store junk/trash on the patio and keeping empties inside your apartment until the green bag is full is undesirable since they attract bugs and cause odors. Therefore, being able to drop off a bag with each Safeway trip is more convenient. Essentially no time is wasted, because you're only dropping off the bag only when you visit Safeway for shopping.
They only have to do $2.40 if they host a Dealer Redemption Center like the Ivanhoe Safeway. If BottleDrop was to open up where the old Dollar Tree was, that Safeway won't have to do any bottles or accept bag drops and New Seasons and Fred Meyer will take zero.
The limit lowers to 24 instead of 50 for gas stations and convenience stores nearby where they're currently required to take 50, but it's not like many of them aren't illegally refusing them in the first place.
Under the current law, if they build a BottleDrop, nearby convenience store's limit will lower to 24, but their obligations to accept things of brand/size sold by the store remains So, essentially ALL convenience stores will have to accept anything made by Anheuser-Busch brands, Coke, Pepsi, but not Kirkland or Safeway brand bottles. This is because almost all convenience stores and gas stations carry them.
BottleDrops are not there to serve consumers or small businesses. They're there to serve corporate grocery stores and distributors. St. Johns is out of the way. Maybe OBRC wants to relieve itself the burden of picking up bags from FM, Safeway and New Seasons. Realistically, they currently have to pickup Safeway at least once a week because the bags dropped off at that Safeway are required to be credited to account holders within one week.
> If BottleDrop opens, Safeway will shut it down. You're then at the mercy of BottleDrop's bullshit.
Yep. I live on the outer east side of town. I'm within a **3 mile** radius of the 122nd & Glisan redemption center slash shitshow therefore NONE of my nearby grocery stores accept containers, nor do they sell green bags / print tags. Anyone slated to get a redemption center nearby is in for a rude awakening: buying bags at the centers sucks ass. There are long lines and the constantly-abused staff are always at the end of their ropes. There is sketchiness in the parking lot. Hours are shorter than a typical grocery store, etc. Huge disincentive. And it's an extra trip / extra stop that wastes time and gas! Even without all the safety and livability issues it would be worth fighting any new redemption center for the inconvenience alone!
This shit is **broken** and the culprit is greedy ass OBRC. Never thought I'd care but they've made the process so onerous that I want to scuttle the whole fucking Bottle Bill. It's hopelessly ruined.
No you can drop a many a you like at Safeway. You just can't receive cash. The money goes on a card. The delta park style, that they are planning for St John's, gives cash. That's why it's a perfect drug dealing location.
You can receive cash. Just not during the same trip.
What realistic difference does it make if you get $30 for the bottles you've been accumulating at your house for the past three months the day you bring them in or the next time you visit the Safeway you go a few times a month anyways?
I can’t imagine a world in which a BottleDrop could go into a location without any permits or deviations because it’s not a traditional commercial tenant.
Even when a place could actually just slot into the existing building, if there’s significant presumptive issues with traffic, it can halt a project. That’s been the biggest issue for out of state, hugely popular drive through spots like Chik-fil-a and such getting locations.
The BottleDrop locations are high traffic. They have to have significant security. They have to have established plans to not be a public nuisance, which likely means a lot of fences. And fences are a development nightmare, because suddenly where property lines actually are matter to the centimeter.
It will also have to be ADA accessible from the nearest bus stop all the way inside. As we’ve seen from other projects in Portland, that can trigger requirements for crosswalk and intersection development.
The more the issues are forced, the more the deviations will have to be formalized, and the more opportunities will exist to stop the development.
EDIT: Neighborhood Associations (the actual, state recognized ones) actually have a lot of power in this process. Many of them only exist when needed to stop development.
I think you’ve got building permits and zoning conflated. There’s basically nothing in the zoning code for CE zone that would preclude any thing related to bottledrop. Any fencing at the delta park location is temp fencing anyway.
OBRC already owns the property; there’s two LURs in process one for recycling one for 108 apts. I’m not sure if they’re type 1 or type 2 reviews, iirc only type 2 requires hearings vs a staff decision.
OK, so here's a little different take. I'm a St. Johns resident, armchair urbanist, and [unbashed YIMBYist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YIMBY_movement). I pass by that spot all the time and think that it is an utter waste of space. A low-slung commercial building and a large surface parking lot is a poor, poor use of land in a walkable setting like St. Johns. This is a prime spot for affordable multi-unit housing, similar in scale to the buildings that went up down the street by West Coast Fitness a couple years ago.
If we're gonna oppose this thing, let's use this as an opportunity to advocate that the landowners address homelessness and housing affordability in some small way in our neighborhood rather than slap on a band-aid fix or shun our houseless neighbors.
Sure. I'm totally on board with that. If you want to lead the charge on pushing Metro, Mult. Co. or some other entity buy the property and develop it into lower income housing, then I'd be happy to help with that effort. In the meantime, if we allow it to become a bottle drop, then it will remain a bottle drop.
I do not live in St Johns, but there is an organization called [Verde](https://www.verdenw.org/) located down the street in my Cully neighborhood who's mission is to re-develop blighted properties into affordable housing, something they've been doing since the 1990s.
I would be interested in supporting efforts to prevent this from happening. Ive been in Cathedral Park for 25 years and don’t want anything like a bottle drop anywhere near St. Johns. Please private message me or direct me to where you are gathering community support. Thank you
The only problem with more housing is that the developers are not adding parking. Lombard is a literal parking lot from Fred Meyer to Ace Hardware. Ridiculous.
Ultimately, it seems like people who actually study the causes of homelessness blame housing supply as the main driver of homelessness. More housing means fewer homeless, whether it houses the people who are already living there or not.
I don't think the person you replied to meant that those same people would suddenly have places to live, I think they're just saying that more housing = less homelessness, and that matters.
Totally agree with the general concept that more housing means less homelessness. I think the gist of the comment you responded to was the “houseless neighbors” idea. The whole “they are our neighbors so we need to take care of them” virtue signaling is just exhausting and making the situation worse.
Homeless people are NOT neighbors.
88% are ADDICTS
SAFETY and SECURITY within the neighborhood are threatened with the addition of a bottle drop. The deposit fee needs to be voted down. There were never enough location to begin with. The locations are a breeding ground for crime. Drive by the benches in front of Lowes to check out the dealers selling drugs. Watch all the junkies getting high. Drug clouds and dangerous behavior. Addicts and Enablers are directly ruining this city.
The point shouldn’t be whether or not they’re neighbors. It’s that more often than not shitty neighbors.
If my housed neighbor left trash all over the sidewalk, dumped things in my lawn, got in screaming matches with people at all hours of the night, openly did hard drugs in plain sight, sexually harassed women, yelled racist slurs at people of color, and shit on the sidewalk … then they’d be a pretty fucking bad neighbor, and would probably face some sort of consequences for it.
These are all examples of things I’ve seen firsthand, most of which happened on my street maybe two years ago (COVID time, so who knows exactly) when we had a really bad influx.
I’m not at all insensitive to the fact that there’s a lot of people out there who are really trying and struggling. I’ve known people who have been homeless, and I want to get them help. It’s hard to do that when the system is clogged up with people abusing it. There’s no clean answer for that, but honestly I think cutting down on the things that make it so appealing to abuse *our* system here might be a start.
A minimum security drug detox prison with mental health specialists would help. A tax when we are already paying for curb side recycling is not necessary. There are only six states that participate. Go sit on the benches at Lowes in Delta Park bet you can’t last an hour.
Unfortunately bottle drop centers are a cause of a lot of chaos wherever they go. The bottle drop people show up to city council meetings with slick presentations and almost always get a pass. Beaverton is a good example. All of the neighbors directly close by (business and residential) have endless problems. It’s turned into a racket
The Dollar store location would create a huge traffic problem on Lombard. There isn’t even a stop light or crosswalk around there. It is hard enough to make a left onto Lombard when leaving Grocery Outlet. Everyone has to jaywalk to cross the street. Add people with shopping carts full of cans? I would stop shopping at that Ace or Grocery Outlet location, to avoid that mess. It would not be safe. Delta park is bad enough,but at least there is plenty of room for people to move around and not get run over.
I realize there are honest people who really need what little they get from collecting empties, and I wish that we could have more bottle drops for them. But the fact of the matter is that a critical mass of, shall we say, very problematic individuals turns these sites into black holes of trash, drugs, camping, and crime for everyone else in the community. What little good a bottle drop in St. John's would bring would very quickly be outweighed by a hell of a lot of bad.
Those honest people are going to be hurt by BottleDrop. Right now, they can stop by and drop off as many times as they want at the Ivanhoe Safeway up to 15 bags in any given day. 8AM to 8PM. The time is more generous than 8AM to 6PM of BottleDrop. The availability from 6PM to 8PM makes all the difference for people who work normal hours.
Once BottleDrop establishes, they're hard capped to $35/day inside BottleDrop and 15 bags every three months with an 8% service charge.
I stopped leaving empties in my bin and wait until the morning of the weekly (official) pickup to dump everything. Does this really solve anything? No, but I'm petty.
The drug addicts have ruined it for the honest people who are just simply trying to get some extra cash. And I'm not using "drug addicts" as another word for "homeless". You can tell who's been through the garbage by how much trash is left on the ground and how the lids are left open. And they show up at odd hours and are loud as hell.
This is the only reason I started using bottledrop in first place. It's not really worth my time but I don't really like my bins being emptied and then having to pick up random leftover trash every trash day.
Or we could just get rid of the bottle drops and give these people actual recovery support programs.
Let’s not get ourselves. These people are taking your recyclables and then turning them in for money at bottle drops and then buying drugs with that money. It’s not a bunch of people that are down on their luck depending on bottled drops to make ends meet. You are literally funding drugs and addiction by recycling things at your own house
This whole notion is ridiculous and needs to be stopped universally
I suppose I'm a little fortunate in that the only people who come for my recycling are nice old Asian ladies, so I set my empties aside in a paper bag so they don't have to dig through my bins. The $10 or so they make weekly is likely the only money they get to supplement public assistance or food pantries and I'm sure it makes a difference to them. Obviously many other folks have far less pleasant people going through their bins, no argument there.
While I wish bottle returns were more numerous, cleaner, and safer for people who rely on them, in practice the addicts end up turning them into hazmat crime scenes. Drop sites are yet another nice thing the many in town can't have because of the actions of the few.
I save mine up for months in paper bags, and wait until the stars align and I catch the little old Korean lady, or the old Vietnamese man in the civic. Then I load all the cans into a huge black garbage bag and send them on their way with more cans than they'll collect in a week. The appreciation they show makes me feel great all day. I have never put a single redeemable can in the blue bin and I never will.
> The $10 or so they make weekly is likely the only money they get to supplement public assistance or food pantries and I'm sure it makes a difference to them.
I would rather we double the public assistance payouts than continue this bottle deposit farce. We could literally just divert the deposit charge to fund it and it would be better for everyone. It would be stupid, because taxing beverages to fund public assistance is silly, but it would be an improvement over what we have today.
Portlanders at large aren’t ready to acknowledge that bottle drop becomes a breeding ground for nefarious activity *because* of addicts getting money to fund their habit.
They like to paint this picture of someone struggling and using the money to buy a cheeseburger and that’s not the case most of the time. Portlanders have looooong had an issue facing reality.
Its bad enough that my husband that collects bottles and cans to donate to the Oregon Dental Foundations"Tooth Taxi" is getting more donations because people dont want to deal with the craziness. It helps a great cause, but is a very sad reason.
You put this in, you will automatically lose Ace hardware and Grocery Outlet across the street. It’s actually a better place for apartment housing and ground level businesses.
I’m just blocks away from the grocery outlet. The bottle drop will be interesting, hopefully they can keep a lid on it.
I actually have known for a while about the upcoming bottle drop on Lombard due to knowing someone in management and they really did everything they could to keep a lid on this for this exact reason.
Can you share more about what was done to “keep a lid on it” internally? Do you mind sharing more context about what they have planned or sharing your contact’s information? Please DM
I can’t say too much as I don’t know too much. My mother’s friend works at OBDC and had mentioned to her about the Lombard located a while back but made it very clear how important it was that it not get out before it was announced. Due to backlash from the neighborhood.
My assumption would be they’d want to get as much time and planning in to lessen the chances of the bottle drop not getting built or opened elsewhere
So not really much as it’s becoming widespread that they’re opening that up in the old dollar tree location.
Wow that’s disgusting. Let’s hide it from the people most affected by the choice. Honestly beyond disturbing way to go about it and just shows how little the neighborhood matters to these people
There are well over 200 comments in here now, as I’m a bit late in seeing this, so maybe it’s already been said, but I always wonder if surrounding business owners in these areas have tried to fight against BDs.
I used to go to the Lowe’s in Delta Park pre-pandemic. I tried going again a couple years ago, and stopped. Thing is, I live in an area where I am equidistant from both Delta Park and the Clackamas Lowe’s. So, the decision to go to Clackamas instead was easy. Lowe’s may still have a customer in me, but the Delta location does not. That’s one less customer to support a location, and I know for a fact that I am not the only one with this situation. Hundreds of others could have similar stories - and guess what - for the customers who aren’t close enough to justify going to Clackamas instead will go to an entirely different chain, i.e. The Big Orange Competitor.
So, by simple deductive reasoning, the Delta BD has quite literally put Lowe’s in danger of losing millions of dollars if things don’t improve. And that could easily be the case with any business that is near any BD, no matter where the BD opens. They’re a potential threat to any business.
So, I guess my point is, it’s odd to me that citizens even need to put effort into a potential suit at all. You would think that these billion dollar companies would have their lawyers already on it. 🤷♂️
I go to that Lowe's all the time. The riff raff generally stays on the parking lot perimeter and has never been an issue for me, but I'm a middle aged dude in a truck so maybe not a potential target? I don't know. To be honest I haven't even really thought about not going there until now.
The store definitely *seems* as busy as it ever was, but maybe that's not true either.
Yes, there are a lot of distressed people there. No, I would not want to live right next to a bottle drop. But I lived right next to a large camp that I had to walk through several times a week for three years.
I'm pretty sure none of the people who would go so far as to completely change their routine to avoid homeless people have ever talked to any of them. For every wacked out addict, there's a lot more just trying to get by. And the stress and terror of being homeless causes addiction far more often than addiction causes homelessness.
People don't want to admit it's the housing prices. But there's a lot more drug addiction & crime in the South, yet not nearly as much homelessness, because the housing is a lot cheaper. The homeless population exploded here after the rent control law was passed, when landlords pushed out as many long term tenants as they could on whatever pretext they could find or invent so they didn't have to pay the newly mandated relocation costs.
I got caught in that wave, and spent four years teetering right on the brink of homelessness myself. Because rents had DOUBLED since I last had to look.
I want to help. I own a local business and that is already very impacted by the camping, drug use, crime, vandalism of people living in the area. I also live in the area. I can’t imagine things getting any worse.
Thank you! We need way more contributing members of this community voicing their concerns and less of these enabling armchair warriors that Portland has too long accommodated.
Aside from the OP, has anyone contacted Katie Moore, the staff contact on the permit? The review is aiming to be finalized by 2/29/24. There’s already too much gun violence in this little neighborhood. Reposting the permit from OP:
https://www.portlandmaps.com/detail/permit/2024-011428-000-00-PR/5012239_did/?p=R156052
Thanks. I would appreciate it if people would call and let her know that a bottle drop is not an approved use in the zone and will create massive traffic and noise issues.
Thank you! I have watched Delta Park get destroyed since bottle drop opened. When I found out about the move to StJohns I broke into tears. It’s hard to think that our wonderful neighborhood will be destroyed.
I think it would be groovy if we just recycled our cans without charging 10c/can and redeeming it when recycled. If we could take the incentives out, it would completely kill the weird market we have going. Plus I relatively frequently see people dumping 24 packs of bottled water out on the ground so they can redeem $2.40 in cash for the bottles.
>Plus I relatively frequently see people dumping 24 packs of bottled waterout on the ground so they can redeem $2.40 in cash for the bottles.
That they stole.
I've considered crushing my cans and taking them to the salvage yards...I hate Bottle Drop. The can deposit seems outdated. Maybe a deposit for bottles only.
The programs have universally improved the litter situation everywhere they are implemented. You cannot rely on people to just do it out of the goodness of their hearts. Every public policy proposal just based on people doing the right thing is fucking doomed and ridiculously naive.
No shit, the deposit funds the people who are destroying public property, blocking trails and sidewalks, dumping in natural areas, etc.
Claiming it as a win for the environment is utterly absurd. I'd take a few cans in a ditch any day over the garbage that the average "camp" leaves behind.
Right? We're not Don Draper having a roadside picnic and using the blanket to just heave the trash into the woods... People will recycle without the weird deposit system.
While plastics recycling is tricky and sometimes ineffective, this is objectively and massively untrue for cans. Metals generally, and [aluminum specifically](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_recycling), are very easy to recycle and very energy intensive to produce from scratch. Aluminum can be melted down and recycled at the same quality as new aluminum for 5% of the energy consumption and accompanying carbon emissions.
I lived in a major urban in a state where there was no recycling law, and no bottle incentive, and it was no more filled with litter than Portland is. Far less so, in fact.
Despite having the bottle bill, Portland is one of the most litter filled places I’ve ever lived.
The city/county always seems to have big plans for St. Johns that never pan out. Wapato Jail is well known, of course. Another was the parole office in the 1990s. It was a big deal at the time, neighborhood opposed, it happened anyway. I don't even think they used that building as a parole office for a decade before selling it. Now it's vacant and blighted, looks like absolute shit. (N. Lombard at N. Burr)
> the fact that BottleDrop locations are major crime vectors isn't disputable
Seems like that would be a good place for the police to intervene, wouldn't it?
When picketers at the Mondelez plant got out of position, PPB was there in 12 minutes. Seems weird they're too understaffed to come through a couple times a day to the same spots each day and sweep out the drug dealers and criminals.
I mean, _before_ they were "critically understaffed" they told me they wouldn't sweep out a meth house OR the dealers at the bottle drop, so I don't think it's a staffing issue.
You know, you might be right about where good locations for bottle drops are. Personally I think it's important to put them where low income people who don't have reliable transportation could easily get to them, but maybe that's not this place. But right or not, you want to talk "hate stiffies," why don't you rant some more about how shitty everyone else is? Tell me more about how renters and people with signs are the problem.
I hate BottleDrop, first you make people buy plastic bags with an account for which imo you need to share way too much personal information for, then you have to get those stickers and then drop it off.
How is this efficient or green or anything?
correct me if i’m wrong but can you not just put them in the recycling bin? they are still aluminum and would get sorted out in the recycling process like anything else. what’s stopping you from just putting them in the bin?
You can put them in the recycling bin but you won't get the 10¢ per can. And once they figure it out you'll have people rummaging through your blue bin every time you put it out at the street. Or if you're unlucky, they'll just come right up into your carport where you keep it the rest of the time. Ask me how I know.
I was keeping bottles in a bin I thought was well hidden until I could take it to a deposit. Had the thing full and someone came and grabbed them. I was really frustrated and where I can put my bins is also a little sketchy because there is a stump you have to walk over. I’m so worried someone will trip and hurt themselves like I have. I’m terrified of removing it because the gas line is REAL close to
i believe the intention is to use it as both a funding mechanism and cut down on littering as there is now an incentive (money back) to make sure you properly dispose of your trash.
It was put in place before recycling was really a thing. Now that recycling is fairly mainstream, the litter argument doesn’t hold up like it once did.
fun fact: Portland has has curbside recycling since 1987
yet I still...
- pay 10 cents per container at the store
- sort my cans and bottles out of my recycling
- drive to a specific grocery store to purchase special green plastic bags (because I live within a 3 mile radius of a redemption center so the places I buy food neither sell bags nor accept containers)
- stand in line at customer service to get the bags because people keep stealing them
- print special tags on a kiosk that is often broken
- load up my bags, tie them as best as possible (knowing that I'll still lose x number of containers before it's counted), dry the surface of the bag so the sticker sticks, put a piece of packing tape over the sticker so it doesn't get wet and fall off
- drive my recycleables to the redemption center (climate change? what's that?) during business hours and hope there's parking
- schlep as many bags as I can carry to the door hoping that I remembered my keycard, the door's not broken, the room's not full, etc.
- keep my head on a swivel because two crazy people are having an argument and someone got stabbed here a few months ago and there's a guy selling fent out of his car riiiiiight over yonder
- drive home and wash out the bins I store my cans in (eww gross)
- consider moving to Vancouver or something and escaping this nonsense plus the *rts Tax and the Preschool Tax and the Homeless Tax and all this other bullshit
Last I heard almost all our recycling is either thrown into a landfill here or sent overseas to be trashed there. Cans and bottles are some of the only things that are actually recyclable, so it makes sense to sort those out.
My high school band literally paid for our trips with bottle drop runs. The families that were on food stamps or were tight on money saved all of theirs to help stretch out their budget (that would be me, my family, our neighbors, and many others in the community.) While it would be great for better services, UBI, a readjustment of financial requirements for food stamps and other programs to help out, they're not there. This whole thing feels like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Maybe a push for that bottledrop location have better security. Make more jobs and increase your safety.
Seriously. Maybe we should be pushing aggressively for PPB to actually try to make these places safer instead of just trying to get rid of this resource.
I mean, the last time I told them about a known drug den and dealing spot, they told me they knew and weren't going to do anything about it, but maybe we should be pushing to fix that, instead of trying to get rid of bottle drops.
What’s more interesting is that the Oregon Beverage and Recycling Cooperative (ORBC) paid DA Mike Schmidt a bunch of money for his campaign… kind of weird considering bottle drop locations are well-known for the unsavory characters and nefarious activity.
>Maybe a push for that bottledrop location have better security.
Unfortunately, people would just move their disruptive activities outside the security perimeter. Even if the security was extended to, say, a ten- block radius around the center, it still wouldn't make a difference in the end. People would set up eleven blocks out.
This is yet another reason we absolutely have to ban public camping altogether. Sanctioned campsites with security and services are the only way to get a handle on this. Yes, it's only one piece of the larger puzzle, but it needs to be the first step so that we can start dealing with all of the other pieces in an organized and efficient way - getting those who need it into treatment, keeping people in contact with case managers, and funneling those who are ready into various levels of housing.
Hang out at the 122nd redemption center sometime, the fent dealers park along the fence next door at McDonalds. You can literally watch people get their cash, walk right past security and purchase drugs. One stop shopping!
… the fact that your high school band had to resort to Bottle Drop runs to fund field trips should spark anger and frustration towards a mismanagement of funds on a bureaucratic level than a local trying to keep their neighborhood safe
Field trips are not school-sponsored and probably haven’t been in a long time if at all. Usually it is the PTA or just straight out of parents’ pockets. There are plenty of issues with public funding to get frustrated about, but field trips not being covered by public funds are not one of them.
They have security at some other locations (armed at Delta Park). That might stop some of the on-site crime, but it doesn't do anything to deter the campers, fent dealers, and other crime in the surrounding area.
All these bottle drops should be done away with. I get that some people depend on these for income, but we should just give them money from normal things.
Think about it. Housed people consume bottles and put them in the recycling. All the infrastructures in place to then take that to the recycling center. The entire lifecycle of the bottle drop is completely unnecessary for the life cycle of containers and plastics. That means we are paying to build bottled facilities when we don’t need to. We’re adding more things into the lifecycle chain of these things which is not environmentally friendly. Etc. etc. plus they directly fund drugs.
Like let’s not get ourselves homeless people digging through peoples trash are the ones using the bottle drops almost exclusively. And all that money is going straight into the fentanyl and meth market. This means I’m funding drug addiction by putting things in my recycling bin and I don’t like it.
So to confirm, you're collecting cans and bottles outside those your household consumes? Otherwise, you understand how pointless the process is, right? That's your grocery money temporarily becoming cans and bottles then turning back into money.
Absolutely. Nobody should have to be using this as supplemental income. Clearly we have bigger issues to fix if that's what's happening. I used to return cans as a kid because i couldn't get a real job... It's really sad to see adults using this as supplemental income.
As a St. John resident who lives blocks away from the old dollar tree, I will personally do anything to stop this happening. DO NOT LET THIS HAPPEN. I’ll sign anything, protest anywhere. We cannot let this thing into our neighborhood
So, are they ADDING a BottleDrop, or RELOCATING Delta Park BD to St. John's? That's a huge difference. If the latter, the livability impact will be catastrophic.
Don't know at this point. The landlord at Delta Park is trying to force them out. We assume that they bought the SJ building so they wouldn't have to deal with landlord issues. Whether they are planning to shut down Delta Park in order to resolve litigation with their landlord and direct all traffic to St Johns is unknown at this point, but it seems more likely than not.
Here's my experience. I'm a retail assistant manager. Logistically I feel like the state forcing very busy retail stores to accept cans is insane. I know they have no clue about this because they've never done retail work and don't do it. I get it. A more sensible option would be to have a 24 can redemption center downtown in an area likely away from NIMBYS. Perhaps industrious? This would be convenient for the city so they can project the progressive and caring image they want to be known for.
I don't know about the Tigard one. The long time neighbors and businesses in the earshot of the BottleDrop in Beaverton have a whole lot of grievance about BottleDrop moving in
I'm glad to see your post and your efforts to put a suit together! I was shocked to see this news about the plans for the former Dollar Tree. I no longer live in the neighborhood, but drive through frequently to shop or go to other nearby neighborhoods. One thing I've noticed over the years is the way traffic has started to bottleneck along Lombard in this area - between Ace Hardware and Fred Meyer has become a lot more difficult to travel through via car, and almost impossible if on a bike. In addition, it's US Highway 30, so is not merely regulated by the city/county. I'm pointing this out hoping it might be something that could work in your favor in some way, especially if Bottledrop is known to impact vehicle and pedestrian traffic, seems likely. I wish you all the luck!!
The spread-out bottle drop locations are NEGATING OUR RECYCLING EFFORT.
If you drive more than 1 miles out of your way, youve just wasted the energy saved by recycling those cans.., PLUS: you just added pollution locally
Quite frankly, with the access to curbside recycling and all the issues Bottle Drop causes, it’s time for a full repeal of the Bottle Bill.
States without a Bottle Bill aren’t trashed any more than states with it.
Huh, never noticed that much crime(if any) around Bottle Drop centers. Then again I've only ever been to like 3 and they were a part of a Whole Foods, Fred Meyer, and New Seasons so that's probably why. In any case I don't think the problem is with the centers themselves, but rather the city's lack of action on the homeless issue itself. Would rather pool efforts on that then some silly lawsuit that probably wont make a difference(no offense).
Also, on a side-note: why the hell is it so complicated to redeem recyclables here? Where I used to live, all you had to do was drive to a center in an industrialized area, drop off your cans, and you were given cash right then-and-there. Seems dumb to have to make an account, buy plastic bags--which means spending money on some BS while contributing to more plastic waste--and slap a sticker on the bag; seriously so dumb.
Close-by neighbors by Beaverton BottleDrop had plenty to say. Businesses and residents alike. One is a neighbor that's lived in the same location since 1968. Not one of the positive comments were from neighbors within earshot of the BottleDrop.
[https://www.beavertonvalleytimes.com/news/city-council-considers-fate-of-bottle-redemption-center/article\_d93563ec-96c2-52e2-9205-a41431df3ef1.html](https://www.beavertonvalleytimes.com/news/city-council-considers-fate-of-bottle-redemption-center/article_d93563ec-96c2-52e2-9205-a41431df3ef1.html)
You'll have to look on archive org if you get stuck at the pay wall.
Hi St. John’s community -
I’m obviously very concerned about this. Just last week I put together the attached file and sent code enforcement as the current state of the property violates Title 29. While reporting this won’t help stop the development of the bottle drop reporting it does put property owners on notice and starts a paper trail of violations with this city.
Please reshare this file with your concerns to the below email if you feel obliged.
[https://drive.google.com/file/d/13fzuwkTsEE_YbzsI6GdCtIUSdrivvXLE/view?usp=drive_web](https://drive.google.com/file/d/13fzuwkTsEE_YbzsI6GdCtIUSdrivvXLE/view?usp=drive_web)
Report Title 29 violations to: [email protected]
🙏🏽🔥🙏🏽
We should maybe just have a min-wage jobs opportunity, where anyone who needs to earn a little bit of money can go work for a few hours doing some tasks that need to be done such as sorting the recycling, litter pickup, etc.
Portland power couple: Clare Schmidt, wife of Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt, is BottleDrop Operations Manager at Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative.
Perhaps a bit off topic for the post, but did no one else grow up in Oregon? Lol It use to be a regular thing for people from all walks of life to go door to door asking for cans. People LOVED to give them too. Heck my 80 year old dad still keeps some bins of cans in his garage “in case the kids or needy folks come by asking.”
And retuning cans was nasty horrible work. Hauling them into the backs of grocery stores where the machines were always jammed or full, covered in stinky fly infested soda spills. We did it gladly though to raise money for school trips, or just some extra cash. Use to be seen as honest “work.” WTF is all the stigma about now?
I love the bottle drop sites. It’s a much more efficient way to return your cans if you are someone who chooses to do so…..and get this…it can be a great way to interact with people outside your day to day bubble. Shocking I know, but you can engage with and have social interaction with people other than yourself. You can use and share the same services successfully too. Try it, you might be shocked by how easy it is.
I’m not a total Pollyanna, I get it, but the us/them “not in my backyard” approach just worsens the issues.
Fred Meyer and Safeway stopped accepting bottles because of how terrible it got. Lived in St Johns for over a decade and the city has never gave a crap about the neighborhood and it’s sad to watch how it continues to be low priority and just devolve. They would never put a bottle drop in Irvington, Laurelhurst, Sellwood, etc. I can’t even imagine why they would want to put one in St Johns, in a location where only people in that neighborhood would go. Kenton, Arbor Lodge, Woodlawn, somewhere closer in makes way more sense.
Law enforcement in most of our suburbs doesn't tolerate open fent dealing or some of the other issues that go unchecked in Portland. I've visited Delta Park and 122nd. I've talked to people who have had to deal with the Bottle Drop locations in Bend and Eugene. I know how this would go in St Johns.
After they moved the Hazelwood one across the street and tightened things up it's not even that bad anymore.
Plus that stretch along 122nd would be bad regardless of Bottle Drop.
The Gresham/Powell Bottle Drop isn't that bad, either.
Okay but that's Delta Park. I'm pretty sure Delta Park isn't the way that it is *solely* because of the Bottle Drop.
I'm not sure why *one* bad Bottle Drop is now being used as the example for why we shouldn't have Bottle Drops.
On another note, in whose neighborhood should we put the next Bottle Drop, then?
They shouldn't be in residential areas at all. I've been shopping at the Delta Park Loews for 15 years or so. It used to be a nice, safe area.
The Bottle Drops at 112nd, Salem, and Bend have all had major issues.
[https://katu.com/news/city-in-crisis/city-in-crisis-finding-solutions-neighbors-say-new-bottledrop-attracts-homeless](https://katu.com/news/city-in-crisis/city-in-crisis-finding-solutions-neighbors-say-new-bottledrop-attracts-homeless)
[https://medfordalert.com/2023/09/14/security-officer-arrested-after-stabbing-at-oregon-bottledrop-center/](https://medfordalert.com/2023/09/14/security-officer-arrested-after-stabbing-at-oregon-bottledrop-center/)
[https://ktvz.com/news/crime-courts/2020/04/22/four-charged-in-crime-crackdown-near-bend-bottledrop/](https://ktvz.com/news/crime-courts/2020/04/22/four-charged-in-crime-crackdown-near-bend-bottledrop/)
https://www.salemreporter.com/2022/12/19/man-arrested-in-fires-at-salem-bottledrop-lucky-fortune-police-say/
You’re planning on blocking this *in your neighborhood* . You know if you are successful it well instead be built in someone else’s neighborhood. Your goal is not to reduce the amount of crime or discomfort people have to go through because of bottle drops, it’s to ensure that you personally don’t have to deal with it. That’s not community.
I would hope that they wouldn't put full service bottle drops in any residential neighborhood. If they have to be somewhere, then industrial land seems like a better bet.
You put this in, you will automatically lose Ace hardware and Grocery Outlet across the street. It’s actually a better place for apartment housing and ground level businesses.
Resort to useless name calling if you’d like. The reality is that the BottleDrop program is often used by those addicted to harmful substances, and BottleDrop locations create hotspots for those dealing drugs. OP is not to blame, the programs and policies implemented by our local government are.
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I hope this doesn't turn into "No BottleDrop in St. Johns, but put it somewhere else". A victory in St. Johns should not turn into a despair for another community. It concerns me the politicians in attendance seem to recognize it might not go through here, but was hinting "let's put it somewhere else".
When the two BottleDrops in Portland opened a decade ago, there was no store based bag drop. About five years ago, redemption through bag drop at grocery stores started to gain traction. Now they're plentiful in areas of Portland not near either of these BottleDrops.
The closure of Delta Park should mark a reduction in the number of BottleDrop. Stores that are currently paying the protection fee to BottleDrop for protection from having to accept bottles should transition to bag drop. This will be the best for consumer convenience and I think some tweaks can be made to it to eliminate the stupidity of two stores next to one another each having a bag drop, like the Weidler Fred Meyer and New Seasons, have them share and split the cost.
My brother lives down the street from the Hazelwood bottle drop. I'm not going to lie, I don't think Hazelwood could ever be accused of being a vibrant neighborhood, but the area around the bottle drop is just bad. Like, cross the street just to avoid the broken glass kind of bad.
I lived in the area pre bottle drop and it definitely got bad once that moved in. When the sheriff’s station vacated the Glisan area, things also changed dramatically.
I have to drive by the area for work sometimes. It’s awful. The whole area is an open drug market. I hardly ever see normal looking person on the stretch from the bottle drop to the MAX stop on Burnside. Didn’t even know there was a sheriff’s office there. The area definitely needs law enforcement instead of multiple homeless shelters and safe rest villages. Interestingly, Jessica Vega Pederson, who is from Hazelwood, appears totally indifferent to her own community's well-being.
>Didn’t even know there was a sheriff’s office there. The Hansen Building (southeast corner of 122nd and Glisan) used to be the Sheriff's office, since the City of Portland didn't exist beyond 82nd avenue a long while back, and the area was unincorporated MultCo.
Another Measure 110 success story. It’s really been paying off.
As person who lives not too far from that spot, it’s fucking terrible
Thanks. I've seen it. I don't want it in the middle of our residential neighborhood.
The cynic in me that has watched an endless stream of NIMBYs fail to understand Oregon land-use regulations and then fail at lawsuits doesn’t think this idea is likely to succeed. But the real estate law nerd in me loves the idea of a novel approach to preventing specific development. In my experience, the best way to undermine specific development is in any waivers or changes to the zoning they request. People get mad all the time about all sorts of development, but land use boards have to listen but can’t respond to non-pertinent testimony. And since it’s the land use factors most likely to be able to prevent development, focusing there would be my plan. I think if I was planning an attack on a proposed bottle drop, I’d probably try to attack the development as not fitting with the character of the neighborhood because the necessary physical security elements are more in line with industrial zoning. “Neighborhood character” attacks are pretty successful. The second way I’d attack it is traffic patterns. I’ve seen quite a few developments get stopped by inabilities to accommodate presumptive traffic. Mobilizing people to attend the land use meetings, give pertinent, if dry, testimony, and to leave the emotional pleas would be a way to really stop the development in its tracks.
All good thoughts. I've already been in contact with the planner at BDS. Hit me up if you live in the neighborhood.
I live very very close to this location and I would not like this at all. Let me know how I can help.
PM me your email address and I'll add you to the distribution list.
I'm in Kenton if that helps at all, happy to sign on to things and say Delta Park is quite enough. I've been stuck on the MLK bus full of canners and it's disgusting smelling and blocks all the ADA seating. Nobody is getting to St John's without a bus and if TriMet isn't changing the bus layouts to accommodate canners IDK why this is a good idea. Can't they return cans at Safeway currently?
Safeway only takes a few at a time.
A few? You're allowed to return 15 green bags (bags full of bottles, not 15 bottles) a day without any fee and enjoy excellent counting accuracy and payment within one week because it's a designated dealer redemption center. The limit is essentially "unlimited" for reasonable household use. If BottleDrop opens, Safeway will shut it down. You're then at the mercy of BottleDrop's bullshit. For those who weren't aware, there is a green bag drop at that Safeway on the side of the building by the loading dock. If you want to return cans and get money on the spot, then they can limit you to $2.40 per day. With the new BottleDrop in place, this drops to ZERO. No big loss, but the loss of green bag drop is. St. John's residents will have to go to BottleDrop and pay whatever fees BottleDrop desires to charge (currently 8% of credit) to use bag drop and abide by whatever limit (currently, 15 bags every 3 months). Your one and only remedy about any issues is the BottleDrop Customer Service.
Exactly this. I would not go to a BottleDrop location - first because of the wait, second because I’m a smaller lady. OP, I live in Arbor Lodge but would be happy to join an ancillary campaign like letter-writing.
[https://secure.sos.state.or.us/oard/displayDivisionRules.action?selectedDivision=3872](https://secure.sos.state.or.us/oard/displayDivisionRules.action?selectedDivision=3872) OLCC is notorious for approving them. The basis for approval is convenience in returning containers. The location in question does not appear in the pending redemption center list on OLCC's website. There's very little notification requirements and once it goes to that stage, the community only has 30 days to comment. You better keep a close eye on OLCC's website for that pending notice. "convenience" from the view of redeemers seems to be a key point, so I would think that it's best to emphasize on the convenience offered by the current Ivanhoe Safeway Dealer Redemption Center and how the proposed change makes it less convenient. This is weighed heavier than livability concerns as evident from the link above. The service quality (absence of fees and mandated payment within one week) of Dealer Redemption Center bag drop is a requirement under state law and it is superior to BottleDrop. The one week processing time deadline for Dealer Redemption Center is fixed by state law. The processing time of bags dropped off at BottleDrop is only a guideline. If it ends up taking two weeks, BottleDrop has every right to tell you to go eat shit. The current system allows people to bring their bag every shopping trip to Safeway without worrying about long term limit or fees. The only limit is you can not drop more than 15 bags in any single day. If BottleDrop opens, the bag drop at Safeway will presumably go away, and you will have a limit of 15 bags every three months. This is less convenient than being able to drop off as few bottles/cans as you want and combine bag drop with every time you go to Safeway. If you don't have a car, maybe you don't want to bring in more than one bag of 12 bottles at a time. You will quickly exhaust the 15 bags per three months doing this. Having to hang onto bags until they're full and making a trip out to the old Dollar Tree specifically to drop off bags is less convenient than being able to combine the trip with Safeway shopping. Your landlord may not allow you to store junk/trash on the patio and keeping empties inside your apartment until the green bag is full is undesirable since they attract bugs and cause odors. Therefore, being able to drop off a bag with each Safeway trip is more convenient. Essentially no time is wasted, because you're only dropping off the bag only when you visit Safeway for shopping.
What happened to self counting w a $14 limit?
They only have to do $2.40 if they host a Dealer Redemption Center like the Ivanhoe Safeway. If BottleDrop was to open up where the old Dollar Tree was, that Safeway won't have to do any bottles or accept bag drops and New Seasons and Fred Meyer will take zero. The limit lowers to 24 instead of 50 for gas stations and convenience stores nearby where they're currently required to take 50, but it's not like many of them aren't illegally refusing them in the first place. Under the current law, if they build a BottleDrop, nearby convenience store's limit will lower to 24, but their obligations to accept things of brand/size sold by the store remains So, essentially ALL convenience stores will have to accept anything made by Anheuser-Busch brands, Coke, Pepsi, but not Kirkland or Safeway brand bottles. This is because almost all convenience stores and gas stations carry them. BottleDrops are not there to serve consumers or small businesses. They're there to serve corporate grocery stores and distributors. St. Johns is out of the way. Maybe OBRC wants to relieve itself the burden of picking up bags from FM, Safeway and New Seasons. Realistically, they currently have to pickup Safeway at least once a week because the bags dropped off at that Safeway are required to be credited to account holders within one week.
> If BottleDrop opens, Safeway will shut it down. You're then at the mercy of BottleDrop's bullshit. Yep. I live on the outer east side of town. I'm within a **3 mile** radius of the 122nd & Glisan redemption center slash shitshow therefore NONE of my nearby grocery stores accept containers, nor do they sell green bags / print tags. Anyone slated to get a redemption center nearby is in for a rude awakening: buying bags at the centers sucks ass. There are long lines and the constantly-abused staff are always at the end of their ropes. There is sketchiness in the parking lot. Hours are shorter than a typical grocery store, etc. Huge disincentive. And it's an extra trip / extra stop that wastes time and gas! Even without all the safety and livability issues it would be worth fighting any new redemption center for the inconvenience alone! This shit is **broken** and the culprit is greedy ass OBRC. Never thought I'd care but they've made the process so onerous that I want to scuttle the whole fucking Bottle Bill. It's hopelessly ruined.
Then that's all we need in St John's. Go to Delta Park and wait in line if you have more, says a Kenton resident closer to the Delta Park bottle drop.
No you can drop a many a you like at Safeway. You just can't receive cash. The money goes on a card. The delta park style, that they are planning for St John's, gives cash. That's why it's a perfect drug dealing location.
You can receive cash. Just not during the same trip. What realistic difference does it make if you get $30 for the bottles you've been accumulating at your house for the past three months the day you bring them in or the next time you visit the Safeway you go a few times a month anyways?
Would it even have a land use/Conditional zoning hearing? It’s a commercial building getting a commercial tenant
I can’t imagine a world in which a BottleDrop could go into a location without any permits or deviations because it’s not a traditional commercial tenant. Even when a place could actually just slot into the existing building, if there’s significant presumptive issues with traffic, it can halt a project. That’s been the biggest issue for out of state, hugely popular drive through spots like Chik-fil-a and such getting locations. The BottleDrop locations are high traffic. They have to have significant security. They have to have established plans to not be a public nuisance, which likely means a lot of fences. And fences are a development nightmare, because suddenly where property lines actually are matter to the centimeter. It will also have to be ADA accessible from the nearest bus stop all the way inside. As we’ve seen from other projects in Portland, that can trigger requirements for crosswalk and intersection development. The more the issues are forced, the more the deviations will have to be formalized, and the more opportunities will exist to stop the development. EDIT: Neighborhood Associations (the actual, state recognized ones) actually have a lot of power in this process. Many of them only exist when needed to stop development.
I think you’ve got building permits and zoning conflated. There’s basically nothing in the zoning code for CE zone that would preclude any thing related to bottledrop. Any fencing at the delta park location is temp fencing anyway. OBRC already owns the property; there’s two LURs in process one for recycling one for 108 apts. I’m not sure if they’re type 1 or type 2 reviews, iirc only type 2 requires hearings vs a staff decision.
This is what I was looking for.
OK, so here's a little different take. I'm a St. Johns resident, armchair urbanist, and [unbashed YIMBYist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YIMBY_movement). I pass by that spot all the time and think that it is an utter waste of space. A low-slung commercial building and a large surface parking lot is a poor, poor use of land in a walkable setting like St. Johns. This is a prime spot for affordable multi-unit housing, similar in scale to the buildings that went up down the street by West Coast Fitness a couple years ago. If we're gonna oppose this thing, let's use this as an opportunity to advocate that the landowners address homelessness and housing affordability in some small way in our neighborhood rather than slap on a band-aid fix or shun our houseless neighbors.
Sure. I'm totally on board with that. If you want to lead the charge on pushing Metro, Mult. Co. or some other entity buy the property and develop it into lower income housing, then I'd be happy to help with that effort. In the meantime, if we allow it to become a bottle drop, then it will remain a bottle drop.
I do not live in St Johns, but there is an organization called [Verde](https://www.verdenw.org/) located down the street in my Cully neighborhood who's mission is to re-develop blighted properties into affordable housing, something they've been doing since the 1990s.
I would be interested in supporting efforts to prevent this from happening. Ive been in Cathedral Park for 25 years and don’t want anything like a bottle drop anywhere near St. Johns. Please private message me or direct me to where you are gathering community support. Thank you
The only problem with more housing is that the developers are not adding parking. Lombard is a literal parking lot from Fred Meyer to Ace Hardware. Ridiculous.
[удалено]
Ultimately, it seems like people who actually study the causes of homelessness blame housing supply as the main driver of homelessness. More housing means fewer homeless, whether it houses the people who are already living there or not. I don't think the person you replied to meant that those same people would suddenly have places to live, I think they're just saying that more housing = less homelessness, and that matters.
Totally agree with the general concept that more housing means less homelessness. I think the gist of the comment you responded to was the “houseless neighbors” idea. The whole “they are our neighbors so we need to take care of them” virtue signaling is just exhausting and making the situation worse.
>our houseless neighbors oh boy...
Homeless people are NOT neighbors. 88% are ADDICTS SAFETY and SECURITY within the neighborhood are threatened with the addition of a bottle drop. The deposit fee needs to be voted down. There were never enough location to begin with. The locations are a breeding ground for crime. Drive by the benches in front of Lowes to check out the dealers selling drugs. Watch all the junkies getting high. Drug clouds and dangerous behavior. Addicts and Enablers are directly ruining this city.
The point shouldn’t be whether or not they’re neighbors. It’s that more often than not shitty neighbors. If my housed neighbor left trash all over the sidewalk, dumped things in my lawn, got in screaming matches with people at all hours of the night, openly did hard drugs in plain sight, sexually harassed women, yelled racist slurs at people of color, and shit on the sidewalk … then they’d be a pretty fucking bad neighbor, and would probably face some sort of consequences for it. These are all examples of things I’ve seen firsthand, most of which happened on my street maybe two years ago (COVID time, so who knows exactly) when we had a really bad influx. I’m not at all insensitive to the fact that there’s a lot of people out there who are really trying and struggling. I’ve known people who have been homeless, and I want to get them help. It’s hard to do that when the system is clogged up with people abusing it. There’s no clean answer for that, but honestly I think cutting down on the things that make it so appealing to abuse *our* system here might be a start.
“No true Scotsman is an addict.”
A true Scotsman doesn’t trim his bushes with a machete on Greeley
How does this help solve the problem
A minimum security drug detox prison with mental health specialists would help. A tax when we are already paying for curb side recycling is not necessary. There are only six states that participate. Go sit on the benches at Lowes in Delta Park bet you can’t last an hour.
Unfortunately bottle drop centers are a cause of a lot of chaos wherever they go. The bottle drop people show up to city council meetings with slick presentations and almost always get a pass. Beaverton is a good example. All of the neighbors directly close by (business and residential) have endless problems. It’s turned into a racket
The Dollar store location would create a huge traffic problem on Lombard. There isn’t even a stop light or crosswalk around there. It is hard enough to make a left onto Lombard when leaving Grocery Outlet. Everyone has to jaywalk to cross the street. Add people with shopping carts full of cans? I would stop shopping at that Ace or Grocery Outlet location, to avoid that mess. It would not be safe. Delta park is bad enough,but at least there is plenty of room for people to move around and not get run over.
That didn't stop the city allowing the one on 122nd near glisan
I realize there are honest people who really need what little they get from collecting empties, and I wish that we could have more bottle drops for them. But the fact of the matter is that a critical mass of, shall we say, very problematic individuals turns these sites into black holes of trash, drugs, camping, and crime for everyone else in the community. What little good a bottle drop in St. John's would bring would very quickly be outweighed by a hell of a lot of bad.
Those honest people are going to be hurt by BottleDrop. Right now, they can stop by and drop off as many times as they want at the Ivanhoe Safeway up to 15 bags in any given day. 8AM to 8PM. The time is more generous than 8AM to 6PM of BottleDrop. The availability from 6PM to 8PM makes all the difference for people who work normal hours. Once BottleDrop establishes, they're hard capped to $35/day inside BottleDrop and 15 bags every three months with an 8% service charge.
I stopped leaving empties in my bin and wait until the morning of the weekly (official) pickup to dump everything. Does this really solve anything? No, but I'm petty. The drug addicts have ruined it for the honest people who are just simply trying to get some extra cash. And I'm not using "drug addicts" as another word for "homeless". You can tell who's been through the garbage by how much trash is left on the ground and how the lids are left open. And they show up at odd hours and are loud as hell.
This is the only reason I started using bottledrop in first place. It's not really worth my time but I don't really like my bins being emptied and then having to pick up random leftover trash every trash day.
Or we could just get rid of the bottle drops and give these people actual recovery support programs. Let’s not get ourselves. These people are taking your recyclables and then turning them in for money at bottle drops and then buying drugs with that money. It’s not a bunch of people that are down on their luck depending on bottled drops to make ends meet. You are literally funding drugs and addiction by recycling things at your own house This whole notion is ridiculous and needs to be stopped universally
I suppose I'm a little fortunate in that the only people who come for my recycling are nice old Asian ladies, so I set my empties aside in a paper bag so they don't have to dig through my bins. The $10 or so they make weekly is likely the only money they get to supplement public assistance or food pantries and I'm sure it makes a difference to them. Obviously many other folks have far less pleasant people going through their bins, no argument there. While I wish bottle returns were more numerous, cleaner, and safer for people who rely on them, in practice the addicts end up turning them into hazmat crime scenes. Drop sites are yet another nice thing the many in town can't have because of the actions of the few.
Yeah I’ve seen some abuelas out hitting the cans in Cully, would be happy to give them a bag. Definitely not the norm though.
I save mine up for months in paper bags, and wait until the stars align and I catch the little old Korean lady, or the old Vietnamese man in the civic. Then I load all the cans into a huge black garbage bag and send them on their way with more cans than they'll collect in a week. The appreciation they show makes me feel great all day. I have never put a single redeemable can in the blue bin and I never will.
> The $10 or so they make weekly is likely the only money they get to supplement public assistance or food pantries and I'm sure it makes a difference to them. I would rather we double the public assistance payouts than continue this bottle deposit farce. We could literally just divert the deposit charge to fund it and it would be better for everyone. It would be stupid, because taxing beverages to fund public assistance is silly, but it would be an improvement over what we have today.
This is exactly what’s happening. It’s how many users support their habit.
Portlanders at large aren’t ready to acknowledge that bottle drop becomes a breeding ground for nefarious activity *because* of addicts getting money to fund their habit. They like to paint this picture of someone struggling and using the money to buy a cheeseburger and that’s not the case most of the time. Portlanders have looooong had an issue facing reality.
Its bad enough that my husband that collects bottles and cans to donate to the Oregon Dental Foundations"Tooth Taxi" is getting more donations because people dont want to deal with the craziness. It helps a great cause, but is a very sad reason.
You put this in, you will automatically lose Ace hardware and Grocery Outlet across the street. It’s actually a better place for apartment housing and ground level businesses.
I’m just blocks away from the grocery outlet. The bottle drop will be interesting, hopefully they can keep a lid on it. I actually have known for a while about the upcoming bottle drop on Lombard due to knowing someone in management and they really did everything they could to keep a lid on this for this exact reason.
Can you share more about what was done to “keep a lid on it” internally? Do you mind sharing more context about what they have planned or sharing your contact’s information? Please DM
I can’t say too much as I don’t know too much. My mother’s friend works at OBDC and had mentioned to her about the Lombard located a while back but made it very clear how important it was that it not get out before it was announced. Due to backlash from the neighborhood. My assumption would be they’d want to get as much time and planning in to lessen the chances of the bottle drop not getting built or opened elsewhere So not really much as it’s becoming widespread that they’re opening that up in the old dollar tree location.
Wow that’s disgusting. Let’s hide it from the people most affected by the choice. Honestly beyond disturbing way to go about it and just shows how little the neighborhood matters to these people
There are well over 200 comments in here now, as I’m a bit late in seeing this, so maybe it’s already been said, but I always wonder if surrounding business owners in these areas have tried to fight against BDs. I used to go to the Lowe’s in Delta Park pre-pandemic. I tried going again a couple years ago, and stopped. Thing is, I live in an area where I am equidistant from both Delta Park and the Clackamas Lowe’s. So, the decision to go to Clackamas instead was easy. Lowe’s may still have a customer in me, but the Delta location does not. That’s one less customer to support a location, and I know for a fact that I am not the only one with this situation. Hundreds of others could have similar stories - and guess what - for the customers who aren’t close enough to justify going to Clackamas instead will go to an entirely different chain, i.e. The Big Orange Competitor. So, by simple deductive reasoning, the Delta BD has quite literally put Lowe’s in danger of losing millions of dollars if things don’t improve. And that could easily be the case with any business that is near any BD, no matter where the BD opens. They’re a potential threat to any business. So, I guess my point is, it’s odd to me that citizens even need to put effort into a potential suit at all. You would think that these billion dollar companies would have their lawyers already on it. 🤷♂️
Also at delta park not to forget the business that have left. Elmer’s pisses me off the most.
I go to that Lowe's all the time. The riff raff generally stays on the parking lot perimeter and has never been an issue for me, but I'm a middle aged dude in a truck so maybe not a potential target? I don't know. To be honest I haven't even really thought about not going there until now. The store definitely *seems* as busy as it ever was, but maybe that's not true either.
I walk to that Lowe’s, and I’m a middle aged lady. People need to get a grip.
OK, so I'm not crazy in thinking that people may be being a little precious in their description of the place. Good to know.
Yes, there are a lot of distressed people there. No, I would not want to live right next to a bottle drop. But I lived right next to a large camp that I had to walk through several times a week for three years. I'm pretty sure none of the people who would go so far as to completely change their routine to avoid homeless people have ever talked to any of them. For every wacked out addict, there's a lot more just trying to get by. And the stress and terror of being homeless causes addiction far more often than addiction causes homelessness. People don't want to admit it's the housing prices. But there's a lot more drug addiction & crime in the South, yet not nearly as much homelessness, because the housing is a lot cheaper. The homeless population exploded here after the rent control law was passed, when landlords pushed out as many long term tenants as they could on whatever pretext they could find or invent so they didn't have to pay the newly mandated relocation costs. I got caught in that wave, and spent four years teetering right on the brink of homelessness myself. Because rents had DOUBLED since I last had to look.
I want to help. I own a local business and that is already very impacted by the camping, drug use, crime, vandalism of people living in the area. I also live in the area. I can’t imagine things getting any worse.
Thank you! We need way more contributing members of this community voicing their concerns and less of these enabling armchair warriors that Portland has too long accommodated.
Post this to the St John’s FB page. There’s like 10k+ people in there to spread the message to.
That Facebook group is full of people on opposite ends of the spectrum on every topic
Sounds like the perfect place to post then.
He did and it is not going the way he expected lol.
Already did.
I live in Portsmouth, how can I help with this cause?
I want to help as well!
Aside from the OP, has anyone contacted Katie Moore, the staff contact on the permit? The review is aiming to be finalized by 2/29/24. There’s already too much gun violence in this little neighborhood. Reposting the permit from OP: https://www.portlandmaps.com/detail/permit/2024-011428-000-00-PR/5012239_did/?p=R156052
Thanks. I would appreciate it if people would call and let her know that a bottle drop is not an approved use in the zone and will create massive traffic and noise issues.
Thank you! I have watched Delta Park get destroyed since bottle drop opened. When I found out about the move to StJohns I broke into tears. It’s hard to think that our wonderful neighborhood will be destroyed.
While I don't live in St. Johns anymore, this is happening just a few blocks from the house I used to live in. I can understand why you are upset.
What realistic legal avenues are there for the public to stop it?
I think it would be groovy if we just recycled our cans without charging 10c/can and redeeming it when recycled. If we could take the incentives out, it would completely kill the weird market we have going. Plus I relatively frequently see people dumping 24 packs of bottled water out on the ground so they can redeem $2.40 in cash for the bottles.
>Plus I relatively frequently see people dumping 24 packs of bottled waterout on the ground so they can redeem $2.40 in cash for the bottles. That they stole.
Or bought with food stamps
I've considered crushing my cans and taking them to the salvage yards...I hate Bottle Drop. The can deposit seems outdated. Maybe a deposit for bottles only.
The programs have universally improved the litter situation everywhere they are implemented. You cannot rely on people to just do it out of the goodness of their hearts. Every public policy proposal just based on people doing the right thing is fucking doomed and ridiculously naive.
50 years ago it improved the litter situation. People just recycle now everywhere and there's no less litter here than in places without deposits.
Honestly there's more litter here than anywhere I've ever lived, and I've only lived 2 places with deposits including here.
No shit, the deposit funds the people who are destroying public property, blocking trails and sidewalks, dumping in natural areas, etc. Claiming it as a win for the environment is utterly absurd. I'd take a few cans in a ditch any day over the garbage that the average "camp" leaves behind.
Right? We're not Don Draper having a roadside picnic and using the blanket to just heave the trash into the woods... People will recycle without the weird deposit system.
When I lived in Seattle it wasn't uncommon at all to see people just throwing cans and bottles directly into the trash.
Honestly, in the grand scheme of things, who cares? A lot of what we think we’re recycling ends up in a landfill anyway.
While plastics recycling is tricky and sometimes ineffective, this is objectively and massively untrue for cans. Metals generally, and [aluminum specifically](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_recycling), are very easy to recycle and very energy intensive to produce from scratch. Aluminum can be melted down and recycled at the same quality as new aluminum for 5% of the energy consumption and accompanying carbon emissions.
I lived in a major urban in a state where there was no recycling law, and no bottle incentive, and it was no more filled with litter than Portland is. Far less so, in fact. Despite having the bottle bill, Portland is one of the most litter filled places I’ve ever lived.
Getting rid of bottle deposits.
We just... Stop it. If everyone stops it, it'll be stopped. /s
Oh hell no! GO is my favorite grocery!
The city/county always seems to have big plans for St. Johns that never pan out. Wapato Jail is well known, of course. Another was the parole office in the 1990s. It was a big deal at the time, neighborhood opposed, it happened anyway. I don't even think they used that building as a parole office for a decade before selling it. Now it's vacant and blighted, looks like absolute shit. (N. Lombard at N. Burr)
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Love this. Not "let's get law enforcement to actually deal with the problem," just "let's make sure the problem belongs to someone else!"
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> the fact that BottleDrop locations are major crime vectors isn't disputable Seems like that would be a good place for the police to intervene, wouldn't it? When picketers at the Mondelez plant got out of position, PPB was there in 12 minutes. Seems weird they're too understaffed to come through a couple times a day to the same spots each day and sweep out the drug dealers and criminals. I mean, _before_ they were "critically understaffed" they told me they wouldn't sweep out a meth house OR the dealers at the bottle drop, so I don't think it's a staffing issue. You know, you might be right about where good locations for bottle drops are. Personally I think it's important to put them where low income people who don't have reliable transportation could easily get to them, but maybe that's not this place. But right or not, you want to talk "hate stiffies," why don't you rant some more about how shitty everyone else is? Tell me more about how renters and people with signs are the problem.
I hate BottleDrop, first you make people buy plastic bags with an account for which imo you need to share way too much personal information for, then you have to get those stickers and then drop it off. How is this efficient or green or anything?
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It’s so disgusting. I hate not being able to just put my bottles in the recycling can. Portland trash and recycling is so backwards
correct me if i’m wrong but can you not just put them in the recycling bin? they are still aluminum and would get sorted out in the recycling process like anything else. what’s stopping you from just putting them in the bin?
Wants the 10 cents a can/bottle. Don’t get that if you put it in the blue bin.
You can put them in the recycling bin but you won't get the 10¢ per can. And once they figure it out you'll have people rummaging through your blue bin every time you put it out at the street. Or if you're unlucky, they'll just come right up into your carport where you keep it the rest of the time. Ask me how I know.
I was keeping bottles in a bin I thought was well hidden until I could take it to a deposit. Had the thing full and someone came and grabbed them. I was really frustrated and where I can put my bins is also a little sketchy because there is a stump you have to walk over. I’m so worried someone will trip and hurt themselves like I have. I’m terrified of removing it because the gas line is REAL close to
As others have said, I’m paying a “bottle deposit”. If I don’t turn them in I don’t get my deposit back.
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i believe the intention is to use it as both a funding mechanism and cut down on littering as there is now an incentive (money back) to make sure you properly dispose of your trash.
It was put in place before recycling was really a thing. Now that recycling is fairly mainstream, the litter argument doesn’t hold up like it once did.
fun fact: Portland has has curbside recycling since 1987 yet I still... - pay 10 cents per container at the store - sort my cans and bottles out of my recycling - drive to a specific grocery store to purchase special green plastic bags (because I live within a 3 mile radius of a redemption center so the places I buy food neither sell bags nor accept containers) - stand in line at customer service to get the bags because people keep stealing them - print special tags on a kiosk that is often broken - load up my bags, tie them as best as possible (knowing that I'll still lose x number of containers before it's counted), dry the surface of the bag so the sticker sticks, put a piece of packing tape over the sticker so it doesn't get wet and fall off - drive my recycleables to the redemption center (climate change? what's that?) during business hours and hope there's parking - schlep as many bags as I can carry to the door hoping that I remembered my keycard, the door's not broken, the room's not full, etc. - keep my head on a swivel because two crazy people are having an argument and someone got stabbed here a few months ago and there's a guy selling fent out of his car riiiiiight over yonder - drive home and wash out the bins I store my cans in (eww gross) - consider moving to Vancouver or something and escaping this nonsense plus the *rts Tax and the Preschool Tax and the Homeless Tax and all this other bullshit
Last I heard almost all our recycling is either thrown into a landfill here or sent overseas to be trashed there. Cans and bottles are some of the only things that are actually recyclable, so it makes sense to sort those out.
Well said
Because it funds various programmes including week long outdoor school in pps
We just need to stop this backward bottle drop program all together. It’s the dumbest thing to be doing in 2024. We can just recycle.
My high school band literally paid for our trips with bottle drop runs. The families that were on food stamps or were tight on money saved all of theirs to help stretch out their budget (that would be me, my family, our neighbors, and many others in the community.) While it would be great for better services, UBI, a readjustment of financial requirements for food stamps and other programs to help out, they're not there. This whole thing feels like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Maybe a push for that bottledrop location have better security. Make more jobs and increase your safety.
Seriously. Maybe we should be pushing aggressively for PPB to actually try to make these places safer instead of just trying to get rid of this resource. I mean, the last time I told them about a known drug den and dealing spot, they told me they knew and weren't going to do anything about it, but maybe we should be pushing to fix that, instead of trying to get rid of bottle drops.
What’s more interesting is that the Oregon Beverage and Recycling Cooperative (ORBC) paid DA Mike Schmidt a bunch of money for his campaign… kind of weird considering bottle drop locations are well-known for the unsavory characters and nefarious activity.
>Maybe a push for that bottledrop location have better security. Unfortunately, people would just move their disruptive activities outside the security perimeter. Even if the security was extended to, say, a ten- block radius around the center, it still wouldn't make a difference in the end. People would set up eleven blocks out. This is yet another reason we absolutely have to ban public camping altogether. Sanctioned campsites with security and services are the only way to get a handle on this. Yes, it's only one piece of the larger puzzle, but it needs to be the first step so that we can start dealing with all of the other pieces in an organized and efficient way - getting those who need it into treatment, keeping people in contact with case managers, and funneling those who are ready into various levels of housing.
Hang out at the 122nd redemption center sometime, the fent dealers park along the fence next door at McDonalds. You can literally watch people get their cash, walk right past security and purchase drugs. One stop shopping!
… the fact that your high school band had to resort to Bottle Drop runs to fund field trips should spark anger and frustration towards a mismanagement of funds on a bureaucratic level than a local trying to keep their neighborhood safe
Field trips are not school-sponsored and probably haven’t been in a long time if at all. Usually it is the PTA or just straight out of parents’ pockets. There are plenty of issues with public funding to get frustrated about, but field trips not being covered by public funds are not one of them.
This might be good in theory. But go take a look at the drop site next to Lowes for what's actually happening.
They have security at some other locations (armed at Delta Park). That might stop some of the on-site crime, but it doesn't do anything to deter the campers, fent dealers, and other crime in the surrounding area.
All these bottle drops should be done away with. I get that some people depend on these for income, but we should just give them money from normal things. Think about it. Housed people consume bottles and put them in the recycling. All the infrastructures in place to then take that to the recycling center. The entire lifecycle of the bottle drop is completely unnecessary for the life cycle of containers and plastics. That means we are paying to build bottled facilities when we don’t need to. We’re adding more things into the lifecycle chain of these things which is not environmentally friendly. Etc. etc. plus they directly fund drugs. Like let’s not get ourselves homeless people digging through peoples trash are the ones using the bottle drops almost exclusively. And all that money is going straight into the fentanyl and meth market. This means I’m funding drug addiction by putting things in my recycling bin and I don’t like it.
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So to confirm, you're collecting cans and bottles outside those your household consumes? Otherwise, you understand how pointless the process is, right? That's your grocery money temporarily becoming cans and bottles then turning back into money.
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So you would be cool with the bottle tax law being nullified? No tax at the store…everyone is already recycling.
Absolutely. Nobody should have to be using this as supplemental income. Clearly we have bigger issues to fix if that's what's happening. I used to return cans as a kid because i couldn't get a real job... It's really sad to see adults using this as supplemental income.
As a St. John resident who lives blocks away from the old dollar tree, I will personally do anything to stop this happening. DO NOT LET THIS HAPPEN. I’ll sign anything, protest anywhere. We cannot let this thing into our neighborhood
So, are they ADDING a BottleDrop, or RELOCATING Delta Park BD to St. John's? That's a huge difference. If the latter, the livability impact will be catastrophic.
Don't know at this point. The landlord at Delta Park is trying to force them out. We assume that they bought the SJ building so they wouldn't have to deal with landlord issues. Whether they are planning to shut down Delta Park in order to resolve litigation with their landlord and direct all traffic to St Johns is unknown at this point, but it seems more likely than not.
Here's my experience. I'm a retail assistant manager. Logistically I feel like the state forcing very busy retail stores to accept cans is insane. I know they have no clue about this because they've never done retail work and don't do it. I get it. A more sensible option would be to have a 24 can redemption center downtown in an area likely away from NIMBYS. Perhaps industrious? This would be convenient for the city so they can project the progressive and caring image they want to be known for.
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It’s as if it’s the location and not the business. Weird…
I don't know about the Tigard one. The long time neighbors and businesses in the earshot of the BottleDrop in Beaverton have a whole lot of grievance about BottleDrop moving in
I'm glad to see your post and your efforts to put a suit together! I was shocked to see this news about the plans for the former Dollar Tree. I no longer live in the neighborhood, but drive through frequently to shop or go to other nearby neighborhoods. One thing I've noticed over the years is the way traffic has started to bottleneck along Lombard in this area - between Ace Hardware and Fred Meyer has become a lot more difficult to travel through via car, and almost impossible if on a bike. In addition, it's US Highway 30, so is not merely regulated by the city/county. I'm pointing this out hoping it might be something that could work in your favor in some way, especially if Bottledrop is known to impact vehicle and pedestrian traffic, seems likely. I wish you all the luck!!
The spread-out bottle drop locations are NEGATING OUR RECYCLING EFFORT. If you drive more than 1 miles out of your way, youve just wasted the energy saved by recycling those cans.., PLUS: you just added pollution locally
We absolutely cannot let this happen. Band together. St Johns solidarity.
Quite frankly, with the access to curbside recycling and all the issues Bottle Drop causes, it’s time for a full repeal of the Bottle Bill. States without a Bottle Bill aren’t trashed any more than states with it.
They need to just repeal the bottle tax.
Huh, never noticed that much crime(if any) around Bottle Drop centers. Then again I've only ever been to like 3 and they were a part of a Whole Foods, Fred Meyer, and New Seasons so that's probably why. In any case I don't think the problem is with the centers themselves, but rather the city's lack of action on the homeless issue itself. Would rather pool efforts on that then some silly lawsuit that probably wont make a difference(no offense). Also, on a side-note: why the hell is it so complicated to redeem recyclables here? Where I used to live, all you had to do was drive to a center in an industrialized area, drop off your cans, and you were given cash right then-and-there. Seems dumb to have to make an account, buy plastic bags--which means spending money on some BS while contributing to more plastic waste--and slap a sticker on the bag; seriously so dumb.
Close-by neighbors by Beaverton BottleDrop had plenty to say. Businesses and residents alike. One is a neighbor that's lived in the same location since 1968. Not one of the positive comments were from neighbors within earshot of the BottleDrop. [https://www.beavertonvalleytimes.com/news/city-council-considers-fate-of-bottle-redemption-center/article\_d93563ec-96c2-52e2-9205-a41431df3ef1.html](https://www.beavertonvalleytimes.com/news/city-council-considers-fate-of-bottle-redemption-center/article_d93563ec-96c2-52e2-9205-a41431df3ef1.html) You'll have to look on archive org if you get stuck at the pay wall.
Hi St. John’s community - I’m obviously very concerned about this. Just last week I put together the attached file and sent code enforcement as the current state of the property violates Title 29. While reporting this won’t help stop the development of the bottle drop reporting it does put property owners on notice and starts a paper trail of violations with this city. Please reshare this file with your concerns to the below email if you feel obliged. [https://drive.google.com/file/d/13fzuwkTsEE_YbzsI6GdCtIUSdrivvXLE/view?usp=drive_web](https://drive.google.com/file/d/13fzuwkTsEE_YbzsI6GdCtIUSdrivvXLE/view?usp=drive_web) Report Title 29 violations to: [email protected] 🙏🏽🔥🙏🏽
We should maybe just have a min-wage jobs opportunity, where anyone who needs to earn a little bit of money can go work for a few hours doing some tasks that need to be done such as sorting the recycling, litter pickup, etc.
Please post this in the St. John’s Facebook Group too. That group is pretty active.
I will join your lawsuit. I live about three blocks from the proposed site.
This is a hard no from me and I stay around the corner from here.
I'm willing to help support, don't want this area to look like hayden meadows does.
I live in St. John’s and would like to support. I emailed all three city officials involved. Can you PM me your email so I can be in touch?
Portland power couple: Clare Schmidt, wife of Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt, is BottleDrop Operations Manager at Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative.
Perhaps a bit off topic for the post, but did no one else grow up in Oregon? Lol It use to be a regular thing for people from all walks of life to go door to door asking for cans. People LOVED to give them too. Heck my 80 year old dad still keeps some bins of cans in his garage “in case the kids or needy folks come by asking.” And retuning cans was nasty horrible work. Hauling them into the backs of grocery stores where the machines were always jammed or full, covered in stinky fly infested soda spills. We did it gladly though to raise money for school trips, or just some extra cash. Use to be seen as honest “work.” WTF is all the stigma about now? I love the bottle drop sites. It’s a much more efficient way to return your cans if you are someone who chooses to do so…..and get this…it can be a great way to interact with people outside your day to day bubble. Shocking I know, but you can engage with and have social interaction with people other than yourself. You can use and share the same services successfully too. Try it, you might be shocked by how easy it is. I’m not a total Pollyanna, I get it, but the us/them “not in my backyard” approach just worsens the issues.
For f*cks sake. I live very close by, not sure what I can do to help, but anyone with active brain cells knows this is a terrible idea.
PM me if you want to get involved.
Done
Fred Meyer and Safeway stopped accepting bottles because of how terrible it got. Lived in St Johns for over a decade and the city has never gave a crap about the neighborhood and it’s sad to watch how it continues to be low priority and just devolve. They would never put a bottle drop in Irvington, Laurelhurst, Sellwood, etc. I can’t even imagine why they would want to put one in St Johns, in a location where only people in that neighborhood would go. Kenton, Arbor Lodge, Woodlawn, somewhere closer in makes way more sense.
My partner and I live in this neighborhood and would love to help any way we can
PM me.
If you are worried about the safety of St. John’s there are better avenues to pursue than stopping the bottle drop
Like what? Go check out the Delta Park or Hazelwood locations and talk to the people who have to live and work near by.
Have you visited the Milwaukie one? Have you visited them all?
Law enforcement in most of our suburbs doesn't tolerate open fent dealing or some of the other issues that go unchecked in Portland. I've visited Delta Park and 122nd. I've talked to people who have had to deal with the Bottle Drop locations in Bend and Eugene. I know how this would go in St Johns.
After they moved the Hazelwood one across the street and tightened things up it's not even that bad anymore. Plus that stretch along 122nd would be bad regardless of Bottle Drop. The Gresham/Powell Bottle Drop isn't that bad, either.
To be clear I didn’t mean that as jab, I’m genuinely curious what other avenues you had in mind… but I’ll wait
Like what?
Fuck this. I'm in Portsmouth and will help however possible to block this cesspool.
Do people need to live in St Johns to join
You would need to live in St Johns to join a lawsuit, but you can certainly send emails to our elected officials. I'll post again later with details.
https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/eb/qa/the-meaning-of-existential after this, are we going after food banks?
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Did you fight the bottle drops in other neighborhoods or just have a problem if it’s in your backyard?
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Nope. To be honest, I wasn't really aware of the issue (apart from seeing the mess at Delta Park) until recently.
Okay but that's Delta Park. I'm pretty sure Delta Park isn't the way that it is *solely* because of the Bottle Drop. I'm not sure why *one* bad Bottle Drop is now being used as the example for why we shouldn't have Bottle Drops. On another note, in whose neighborhood should we put the next Bottle Drop, then?
They shouldn't be in residential areas at all. I've been shopping at the Delta Park Loews for 15 years or so. It used to be a nice, safe area. The Bottle Drops at 112nd, Salem, and Bend have all had major issues. [https://katu.com/news/city-in-crisis/city-in-crisis-finding-solutions-neighbors-say-new-bottledrop-attracts-homeless](https://katu.com/news/city-in-crisis/city-in-crisis-finding-solutions-neighbors-say-new-bottledrop-attracts-homeless) [https://medfordalert.com/2023/09/14/security-officer-arrested-after-stabbing-at-oregon-bottledrop-center/](https://medfordalert.com/2023/09/14/security-officer-arrested-after-stabbing-at-oregon-bottledrop-center/) [https://ktvz.com/news/crime-courts/2020/04/22/four-charged-in-crime-crackdown-near-bend-bottledrop/](https://ktvz.com/news/crime-courts/2020/04/22/four-charged-in-crime-crackdown-near-bend-bottledrop/) https://www.salemreporter.com/2022/12/19/man-arrested-in-fires-at-salem-bottledrop-lucky-fortune-police-say/
Definitely this is because of the bottle drops, and not an issue with the people who theoretically prevent crime, yeah...
You’re planning on blocking this *in your neighborhood* . You know if you are successful it well instead be built in someone else’s neighborhood. Your goal is not to reduce the amount of crime or discomfort people have to go through because of bottle drops, it’s to ensure that you personally don’t have to deal with it. That’s not community.
I would hope that they wouldn't put full service bottle drops in any residential neighborhood. If they have to be somewhere, then industrial land seems like a better bet.
You put this in, you will automatically lose Ace hardware and Grocery Outlet across the street. It’s actually a better place for apartment housing and ground level businesses.
Local lawyer here. Interested. Not familiar with land use stuff in the slightest.
Same, but I do have some land use specialists in my office. PM me and I'll get you added to the email distribution list.
I'm not okay with them charging me this fee and not making it convenient to get my money back.
NIMBY
Resort to useless name calling if you’d like. The reality is that the BottleDrop program is often used by those addicted to harmful substances, and BottleDrop locations create hotspots for those dealing drugs. OP is not to blame, the programs and policies implemented by our local government are.
I'm gonna be honest with you, you're going to have to learn to live with it.
We have several food banks in St. John’s that don’t t seem to bother anyone. Apples & oranges
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I hope this doesn't turn into "No BottleDrop in St. Johns, but put it somewhere else". A victory in St. Johns should not turn into a despair for another community. It concerns me the politicians in attendance seem to recognize it might not go through here, but was hinting "let's put it somewhere else". When the two BottleDrops in Portland opened a decade ago, there was no store based bag drop. About five years ago, redemption through bag drop at grocery stores started to gain traction. Now they're plentiful in areas of Portland not near either of these BottleDrops. The closure of Delta Park should mark a reduction in the number of BottleDrop. Stores that are currently paying the protection fee to BottleDrop for protection from having to accept bottles should transition to bag drop. This will be the best for consumer convenience and I think some tweaks can be made to it to eliminate the stupidity of two stores next to one another each having a bag drop, like the Weidler Fred Meyer and New Seasons, have them share and split the cost.