Tamie Harrison, owner of L-T Redemption Center, 300 Second St., Webster City, is pictured at her business. With only 60 beverage bottle redemption centers remaining across Iowa — fewer than one per county — the Webster City business is a busy place. L-T is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays to Fridays, 8 a.m. to noon on Saturdays, and closed Sunday, Monday and holidays.

Tamie Harrison draws a clear distinction between recycling, as most of us think of it, and redemption, which is the work of her company, L-T Redemption Center.

Redemption is clearly defined, and regulated, by Iowa’s bottle deposit law, which took effect May 1, 1979, to recover beverage containers and prevent littering.

Here’s how it works: You buy a six-pack of pop at a grocery store, paying a deposit of five cents per bottle or can. For every container you take back to L-T, it refunds (redeems) your nickel, in effect rewarding your responsible handling of the container. Harrison then resells bottles and cans to distributors, who buy back their own bottles for recycling programs.

L-T, located at 300 Second St., Webster City, only redeems deposits for alcoholic and carbonated drinks bottles and cans bought in Iowa, and only for those brands for which it has a distributor customer. This includes brands owned and distributed by Pepsi, Coca-Cola and 7-Up, the most popular soft drinks sold across the state.

Harrison’s distributor customers are in Fort Dodge, Carroll and Ames. Another distributor, Crinc’s, of Des Moines, buys certain smaller, brand soda and liquor bottles. L-T staff will tell you which brands are redeemable when you take them in. For instance, Kirkland Signature containers, distributed by Costco, are not accepted. Neither are bottles or cans of tea, coffee, juice, lemonade or water. None of them meet the letter of the law as alcoholic or carbonated.

Businesses like L-T are comparatively rare in Iowa.

Harrison recalled, “When we started in the business, 20 years ago, there were about 80 redemption centers in Iowa. Today, there are around 60.”

Since the 1970s, redemption centers have been paid six cents per container by distributors. After paying consumers five cents per container, that left them with only a penny a bottle. The razor-thin margin made it a very tough business.

“It came close to killing us off,” Harrison said.

In January 2023 distributors began paying redemption centers eight cents per bottle, giving them bigger profits and, with it, the ability to invest in the future of their businesses, as well as perhaps paying employees more.

Despite the state’s loss of redemption centers, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources estimated that in 2017 86% of Iowa’s carbonated and alcoholic beverage containers — some 1.65 billion — were redeemed.

Into this huge stream of plastic, glass and aluminum, L-T contributes somewhere between 20,000 to 40,000 bottles daily. You read that right. As many as 40,000 containers per day are collected by one small business in one small town.

Iowa’s redemption rates compare favorably with other states with beverage container deposits.

Iowans broadly support deposits on beverage containers. The Des Moines Register reported in its March 29, 2022, edition that 71% of Iowans support expanding the present law to cover bottles of water and sports drinks. Also, 51% were in favor of increasing deposits to 10 cents per bottle.

This is in contrast to Iowa’s grocery stores, convenience stores and Wal-Mart, who favor scrapping the deposit system altogether.

Grocery stores argue the handling of used bottles and cans is a health hazard in a setting where fresh foods are prepared and sold, and is costly to administer, resulting in higher costs for all groceries.

In November 2004, Iowa’s two largest grocery chains — Fareway and Hy-Vee — announced they would no longer accept returned bottles and cans beginning in January, 2005. The Iowa Legislature ruled this acceptable, but only where a local redemption center was nearby. This proved unwieldy to monitor and enforce, and, eventually, the grocery stores were successful in their quest to end beverage container redemption in their stores.

The coronavirus pandemic upended can and bottle redemption. Harrison remembered, “we had to shut down for three weeks in 2020 due to fears empty cans and bottles might spread the virus. When we re-opened, we were overwhelmed with the number of cans and bottles people brought in. With more people working from home, they drank more pop and alcohol than usual. We’d never seen so many empty cans and bottles around here.”

A few rules apply for those wishing to redeem containers at L-T. You may only redeem cans or bottles carrying the Iowa 5-cent deposit notification, only bottles bought in Iowa. They can be taken to the redemption center in clear, plastic bags only. Black bags are not permitted, as staff can’t see what’s being redeemed. You’ll be paid in cash on the spot, and may also borrow plastic crates to store, and return, redeemable cans and bottles at no charge.