CALIFORNIA NEWSWIRE (SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — Today, California is nearing 550 billion beverage containers recycled as the state’s deposit-return-recycling system marks 40 years of reducing litter, creating jobs, recycling beverage containers into new products, and returning cash to consumers, CalRecycle announced. The Beverage Container Recycling and Litter Reduction Act was signed into law on September 29, 1986, amid rising concern over litter, landfill space, and natural resource depletion.
In 2025 alone, Californians recycled a record 20.3 billion beverage containers, or 71% of containers sold, providing manufacturers with clean material used to create new bottles, cans, and other products.
CalRecycle Director Zoe Heller said, “Over the past four decades, Californians have kept nearly 550 billion beverage containers out of our environment and landfills, putting money back in their pockets and supporting local businesses that turn empty beverage containers into new products.
“New efforts are making it even easier for Californians to cash in and recycle more with modern technology and more recycling sites that meet consumers where they are.”
California was among the first states to pass a Bottle Bill and today runs the nation’s largest deposit-return-recycle system. Consumers pay a 5-, 10-, or 25-cent CRV deposit on eligible beverages and redeem containers to be recycled at over 1,400 recycling locations statewide, supplying clean, sorted, high-quality material that drives California’s circular manufacturing economy.
The Beverage Container Recycling Program built the foundation of California’s recycling economy by supporting small businesses, creating jobs, and reducing reliance on virgin resources.
Californians can find their nearest recycling location at https://BottlesandCans.com.
For more information on eligible CRV containers, visit https://CRVHelp.com. Find CRV recycling rules on https://RecyclingReimagined.ca.gov and see how small actions can have a big impact.
California Beverage Container Recycling Fun Facts
* Californians recycle about 70% of beverage containers each year, one of the highest program recycling rates and total volumes in the world.
* Californians return an average of 37.6 million CRV containers a day (435 a second), sending them directly into recycling and remanufacturing.
* Lined up, recycled beverage containers could make 48 round trips to the moon, stretch 35 million miles to Mars, or circle California 10,478 times.
* Recycling CRV has prevented 52.5 million metric tons of CO2e, equal to taking 12.2 million cars off the road for a year, by replacing virgin resources with recycled ones.
* Energy savings total 260.6 billion kilowatt-hours, enough to power every California home for 3 years.
* Recycling CRV containers saved 1.26 billion cubic yards of landfill space, 556 billion gallons of water, and 57 million tons of raw bauxite ore, crude oil, and sand by using recycled materials instead of virgin resources.
* * *
This version of news first appeared on and is © 2026 CaliforinaNewswire.com – all reproduction rights reserved.
