After suspending operations in mid-March on coronavirus-related safety concerns, Massachusetts and New York have initially restarted their container deposit programs, following an earlier move by Connecticut, with Michigan soon to follow.
On June 5, reverse vending machines in Massachusetts reopened. The state Department of Environmental Protection said enforcements of redemption requirements on June 19 will resume at retailers.
At facilities facing staffing issues in New York, retailer enforcements had been relaxed, meaning retailers were not in violation of state law for turning away residential recyclables at drop-off locations. However, all redemption sites at supermarkets and big-box stores must have reopened by June 3, the state Department of Environmental Conservation announced.
By allowing retailers to accept the bottle and can returns exclusively by RVMs to limit person-to-person contact, Michigan will also begin the first phase of its reopening process on June 15. Ten states in the US currently have mandatory container buyback programs. Nine of these states had severely limited or temporarily halted buyback operations since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.
