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Our recycle centers are in the same stores we buy our cans/bottles from. It takes but 5 minutes to return our bottles and cans and we have the money towards our next purchase.
It really is that simple.
In travelling I have noticed that other states that don't have a deposit system the highways are sometimes a mess with cans and junk littering them. Michigans highways are clean due to the deposit initiative.
Deposits are resisted by retailers. To handle returned cans, they have to pay clerks/bag boys, or someone to receive the cans/bottles. That is not the big problem. Big problem is storing the cans/bottles. That is waste space, as it makes no return on investment. They give up things like warehousing to make that space. That reduces their warehouse space so they lose the ability to store goods they can sell and make a profit. That is non productive space.
Those can machines that accept them, are something that takes a lot of time for the customers to insert them one at a time. It is also something for the help to have to clean and remove cans and move them to storage.
So I have to burn gas to drive to the nearest recycling center?
Tell me what good that does for the environment?
You can return bottles in MI at wherever you bought the bottles from..
Most people buy their soda/beer at the grocery store. You then rinse the cans/bottles, put them in a bag, and the NEXT time you're going to the grocery store you take them back.
Its really quite painless, and if you're too lazy to reclaim your dime and throw the bottle out your car window (its rare, but still happens) the homeless or disenfranchised will be happy to pick it up and take it back for you.
The bottlers (among others) have fought aggressively to prevent more states from adopting these procedures. Too bad, they're very effective and cutting down on roadside pollution and encouraging recycling.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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When paying for garbage pickup, the local company provided free recycling pickup. Why would we want to bother taking the trouble to take bottles to a store and wait in line for a few cents refund when we can just throw them into the provided rolling bin along with the cardboard, plastics and other recyclables?
I lived in California for a long time, and never reclaimed my deposits, but I did put the cans/bottles out in a third bin on trash day for whoever wanted them.
Now that I'm somewhere w/o a deposit, I put the cans/bottles in the normal recycle, it's not hard and they provide the bin and the pick up.
It only raises the cost of every six pack if you are too lazy to take the bottles/cans back
??? ???
Oregon now has these enormous Bottle Drop return centers. Because they are designed for insane volume, they serve vast populations. (When a Bottle Drop opens, larger stores within a certain distance no longer have to accept bottle returns, and smaller stores have to accept only about $1.00 of returns per person per day.)
The one closest to me is not accessible by transit, which makes it a long, tedious, and time-consuming walk with any non-trivial quantity of returnables. So I'm supposed to take three hours out of my day to return $2.00 of bottles?
I'm going to set up home carbonation and say goodbye to Big Soda.
I lived in California for a long time, and never reclaimed my deposits, but I did put the cans/bottles out in a third bin on trash day for whoever wanted them.
Now that I'm somewhere w/o a deposit, I put the cans/bottles in the normal recycle, it's not hard and they provide the bin and the pick up.
People do that here as well; and there are also people who walk neighborhoods the eve of trash pickup to collect them.
Deposits on bottles was a common practice back in the 50's,60's& 70's. But it meant that somebody at the return point had to get off of their lazy a-- and count the bottles and give you the money, store the bottles until somebody picked them up and doggonit it was just too much work !! So much easier to just throw them away like everything else we do in society today ! I always thought it was a good idea and as kids it gave us some spending money for candy !
Deposit back then was 2 cents, which adjusted for inflation is more than 10 cents today.
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