An update to the 40-year-old bottle redemption bill is closer than it has ever been before.

The Iowa Senate passed their version two weeks ago, Senate File 2378. The House amended that bill to compromise on several different components and it passed on Tuesday, the vote was 70 to 16 in a bipartisan effort.

The handling fee will be raised to 3-cents for redemption centers, which has been 1-cent for decades. Retailers are also able to get that 3-cent handling fee if they decide to collect cans.

“The handling fee is increased in our bill up to what the Senate had wanted at 3 cents,” said State Representative Brian Lohse (R) from Bondurant. “We thought that was the better way to go to get back involved in redemption centers; also it encourages retailers if they so choose to continue taking cans and bottles by giving them the 3 cent handling fee as well.”

Under this new bill, retailers can opt-out of accepting those cans and bottles if they sell fresh produce in their business. Retailers would also need to be under the agreement of having a mobile redemption center on their property, that sends payments to the consumer days later. There are a couple of other ways for retailers to get out of collecting bottles and cans; so this new amendment narrows the Senate’s version of who is able to opt-out of collection.

“Our bill was a little more extensive what we did is take the House bill, take the Senate bill and try to really play up and bring out the things in our bill that were really ensuring that consumers had a place to bring these for as long as possible as we kind of phase the grocers out of the equation,” said Lohse.

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