Closing the Bottle Drop on 555 NE 122nd Ave is a complex issue that is not without negatives, but doing so would be better for everyone in our neighborhood in the long run.
Scroll down to learn more about the issue.
Then, decide if you want to support this effort and
I. Contact your representatives.
2. Sign the Petition
3. Share your thoughts, stories, and photos for others to learn from. These will also be sent to our local representatives.
Corporate interests use the Oregon Bottle Drop Program to increase their profits. They say they are giving us this:
In reality, this is what we get.
Drop the Drop Campaign
Why?
The Bottle Drop only serves people's short-term needs, while hurting everyone in the long run. Relying on roving local streets to re-recycle cans and bottles is not a humane or reasonable stopgap measure to meet the needs of people in hard circumstances. Watching our neighborhood repel both businesses and families, leading to fewer opportunities in our neighborhood, leading to even more businesses and families leaving, and thus even fewer opportunities, is a vicious cycle that we need to stop. Open drug use, people passed out on the streets, increased crime, trash piles everywhere, streets that feel unsafe, and more. Is the Bottle Drop the sole cause of all of this? No. However, observe the area around it or talk to neighbors and nearby businesses, and it is clear that the Bottle Drop has created significant negative impacts in our neighborhood as compared to those without one.
The limited benefits of the bottle drop are not worth the cost. It needs to be moved to a non-residential area or closed.
Neighborhood Stories
How has the Bottle Drop impacted life in our neighborhood for you?
Read other people's stories and see their pictures.
Please also upload your own pictures and share your own thoughts! This is an important part of this campaign, helping our representatives to understand what is really affecting our neighborhoods' long-term direction and ability to become a place of opportunity, and not stasis, for all its residents.
Brenda
Our neighborhood has become totally trashed in part because of the location of this bottle drop. As if we need any more District 1 issues. Because of the transient and drug activity folks are actually scared to take their cans/bottles back. Folks have their cans stolen from their properties. What you witness is homeless zombies pushing their cans around in stolen shopping carts. Jaywalking right in front of moving cars. Spend some time just watching. It's a scary situation. You don't think those folks have weapons on them. That entire area is now trashed and unsafe. Something needs to be done.
Carl
I grew up, and use to live in the Parkrose area until 2023. I watched the area where the bottle drop is located degrade. Large camps located all along 122nd ave, and the side streets. This is no longer the neighborhood I grew up in.
Candi
I hate seeing the long lines and all the drug activity around the bottle drop. The bottle bill was originally meant to recycle bottles and cans...that's it! It has become a way for the homeless to make money. I say stop the individual can redemption. If you only let green bags be deposited there would be no lines. Whomever deposits their green bags will still have access to their funds, just not instantly. This would stop what is going on out there. The program was never meant to be a way to make money, Stop it now.
Nick
My wife and I bought our first home in 2019 in Hazelwood. It was a nice quiet neighborhood. We had no idea a bottle drop would literally be built behind our house. Since the Bottle Drop has opened, our house has been broken into, our cars vandalized and many customers from the bottle drop wander over to the nearby Taco Bell lawn to buy, sell and use fetanyl. They also use the nearby lawns and driveways as their toilet. The police are aware of the ongoing issues, yet do absolutely nothing about it. All of us homeowners on NE 120th were never even made aware or notified of a bottle drop being built so close to our homes.
Kurtis
Reason: The 122nd bottle drop is now a safety issue. People are almost getting run over. only one way in or out. It never should have been put there.I do use it, and I'm not opposed to it, but it needs to be moved or rethought. Thank You.
Laurie
The amount of homeless in the area increased immensely once this "idea " was put into affect. We NEED to go back to the way things were. You pay deposit at a store, you return the cans to that store. That would spread things out again and fix the issues these sites have created.
MAX completely destroyed my neighborhood also. I think mostly because the homeless are able to move around better and come through all our neighborhoods to collect cans. Maybe we could just remove bottle deposit all together and just put them in cans to be recycled?
A lot of people ONLY do that these days, because it's disgusting to go to bottle drop areas. AND SCARY!
But then the homeless are constantly going through our cans looking for bottles. They're disrupting neighborhoods and literally going into people's backyards to steal cans! I have about 20 bags of cans in backyard right now that need to be taken in, but the fear is too great to do it.
Please just fix this problem!
Diane
Allowing the homeless groups to collect cans and run to the bottle drop daily to get money for their fix is not ok. I can only turn in maybe 144 cans a day, yet the homeless can turn in HUNDREDS of cans daily, many times transporting the huge bags of cans on Trimet’s buses and trains. Allowing this is rewarding these folks for their lack of desire to actually work a real job for real pay!
Tobi
I am only in that area twice a year and it never fails that I'll encounter addled people wandering in and out of traffic on that stretch of 122nd between Division and Halsey. Scary and dangerous.
Elizabeth
The whole system needs to change. I'd prefer curb-side recycling as collecting and managing cans and the time it takes to drop them off is an unnecessary burden. It does not support a healthy community and is an undue burden. It's a scapegoat for addressing homelessness and creates crime and degrades neighborhoods. Moral in the community matters, and the bottle drop is a blight.
L
I do not like that bottle drop. It has attracted unsavory people to the area.
NATALIE HEITZMAN
All it does is draw more homelessness and crime to our neighborhood.
Juan
I see drug deals happening at it and next door in the McDonalds parking lot. I would not want to own one of the businesses near there. We also find trash all over in the blocks next to the the bottle drop. Here is a drug deal that happened on the sidewalk right outside a bottle drop.