Starting next year, you can get cash for alcohol bottles in California

Starting next year, Californians will be able to recycle wine and liquor and large juice bottles for cash. 

The beverage containers will be included in the California Redemption Value fee, a statewide program implemented after the 1986 Bottle Bill in which consumers pay a fee when purchasing beverages packaged in aluminum, glass, plastic and metal. As with containers already subject to the CRV, the fee will be refundable when the bottles are returned to a recycling center beginning Jan. 1.

Wine, liquor, alcoholic coolers and juice in containers 24 ounces or less will be redeemable for five cents, according to CalRecycle, and those over 24 ounces will be redeemable for 10 cents. Wine and liquor sold in paperboard or pouches, such as boxed wine, will earn a 25-cent refund. 

“Adding more alcohol and juice containers on Jan. 1 is the first of several changes we’re rolling out to make recycling easier for Californians,” Rachel Machi Wagoner, executive director of CalRecycle, said in a news release from 2023 America Recycle Day. 

Previously, the Bottle Bill applied to all nonalcoholic beverages, such as juices, soda and water. It did not cover milk and vegetable juice over 16 ounces, beer, wine coolers and distilled spirits coolers. 

Two new laws changed the Bottle Bill. Senate Bill 1013, passed by the California Legislature in 2022, introduced wine and spirit bottles to the recycling program. Then in September lawmakers, approved Senate Bill 353, which made large containers of fruit juice and vegetable juice redeemable for cash when recycled.

Still not included in the Bottle Bill are food and nonbeverage containers, milk and infant formula.