NPI might ‘can’ Broadway Street redemption center
In recent weeks, the redemption center, located at 210 Broadway St. in Red Oak, has had to close its doors during normal operating hours.
Owned and operated by Nishna Productions, Inc. (NPI), the redemption center has had an influx of redeemable items over the summer that has exceeded the volume the current employees can efficiently process during normal operations.
“This is not the first time the redemption center has had to close to handle the volume of cans and bottles that have been turned in; it was closed for nearly a month last fall,” said Emily Martin, NPI development specialist.
Martin added there is a very strong possibility the redemption center will soon close.
“It is hard to conceive how closing is an option, given how busy the redemption center always is. The reasons are fairly straightforward and are the same reasons most businesses close: lack of human resources to sort the product, and the center is costing NPI more money to keep open than what it is bringing in,” Martin said.
She explained when a customer brings in a bag of 500 cans and bottles to the redemption center, what they see is a worker counting the items and sorting them between plastic and aluminum. The customer receives a check and leaves the center. However, the actual process of recycling those items has just begun.
“Once a bag of sorted aluminum cans (or plastic bottles) is full, it leaves the counting area that the public sees and goes to the back area where it is dumped out and the cans (or bottles) are sorted. They are placed into cardboard flats based on brand (Pepsi, Coke, Budweiser) and by size (2-liter, 20-ounce, 12-ounce).
Once the flat is full, it is placed in a stack of matching flats on a table. Depending on the size of the item, a certain number of flats are required to fill a bag. For example, it will take more flats of 12-ounce plastic bottles than 2-liter plastic bottles to fill a bag. Once a bag is full, it is moved to the warehouse where it sits until the distributor picks it up,” said Martin.
That is a lot of work for one penny a can, which is what NPI receives.
In 1978, the state legislature established Iowa’s Bottle Bill, which has two parts. The first is a 5 cent refund fee and the second part of the bill is a one cent handling fee.
Martin said, recently workers at the redemption center spent more than two hours sorting nearly 4,000 cans. Receiving only one cent per can led to only $40. Redemption can employees are paid minimum wage, which is $7.25 per hour.
When all was said and done, NPI paid $39.88 for $39.60 worth of cans. Taking into consideration paying a more competitive wage, such as those at other area redemption centers ($9.63 per hour), NPI spent $52.97 in wages to process cans which paid out $39.60; a loss of $13.70.
In the month of June, NPI processed 315,000 redeemables. Despite being an impressive number, that merely amounted to $3,150. Wages to process the cans was more then $4,000 alone and does not include the costs of utilities, insurance and other facility-related fees.
Martin said if NPI decides to close the facility, it’ll join the ranks of roughly 200 other redemption centers within the state that have closed in the past 10 years.
“Short of legislative changes, the only viable way to keep the redemption center open and available to the public is to recruit volunteers to help offset the labor costs,” Martin said.
If interested in helping NPI keep the redemption center, contact them at 712-623-4362.