Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
If we're talking about returning other peoples' bottles, makes sense. Otherwise, my idea of being frugal is not buying soda in the first place (it is literally why I almost never drink it-- I don't want to spend what it costs to buy it).
I guess you're still making a penny or a penny and a half on your own bottles.
Do you sometimes pick bottles you see on the street, too?
Only if i have a coupon to get the 6-6.5 cents. Otherwise its getting back only the nickle i paid deposit on when i bought the water bottle. So you dont "make" anything.
I will pick up cans and bottles on the street only in the fact that it makes tge environment cleaner, and there are few of those. We have litter laws, hiway cleanup crews and tte like.
Its not worth the effort, gas and the like to go collecting looking "to make money" at it anyway. Its only a nickle.
I will save bottles when on vacation to turn in that i bought while on vacation, as i paid the 5 cent deposit in there somewhere.
For those of you who live in a state or country that has enables you to return bottles for cash:
- do you do it? Because you need the money or the fun of it?
- how much have you made so far?
It all goes in the recycle bin. The time and effort to return used bottles and cans just isn't worth my time or energy. Not that hard up yet.
My wife and I collect them from work because we don't drink sodas and water bottle. We save it until we have about 5-6 large bags then we give it to my dad. He sells them and donates the money to charities he likes.
My wife and I collect them from work because we don't drink sodas and water bottle. We save it until we have about 5-6 large bags then we give it to my dad. He sells them and donates the money to charities he likes.
It all goes in the recycle bin. The time and effort to return used bottles and cans just isn't worth my time or energy. Not that hard up yet.
It depends on where you are.
I grew up with the California recycling program, or vice versa. It started off very rigid and limited and hard to use, and quickly evolved to local-area collection of bulk cans and bottles. You could crush the cans to save space and it was all done by weight; I don't know what the net return is from the deposit totals, but there's some margin kept to pay for the program. It's fairly easy to make a run by a recycling station ever few weeks and takes only a couple of minutes.
Then I moved to Connecticut. Which, being Connecticut, looked at how everyone else was doing it and then implemented the most demanding, least flexible and almost wholly inconvenient method it could find. Recycles have to go back to the store where you bought them; if you try to go to another location you may find most of your items rejected as "not sold by this store" - sometimes even mega-brands like Coke or Snapple. Smaller brands and promotional versions often were not in the database, so rejected even by the selling store machines.
And yes, rejected... because you have to stand and slowly feed the intact, undamaged items into collection machines, which have about a 90% accuracy rate of reading the barcodes. Can't crush the cans. Can't do any kind of bulk drop. Machine bins frequently fill up and you have to wait for a grumpy grocery store employee to come switch bins, reset faults, fix jams.
The deposits were just high enough and our family load just small enough that I put up with it... but never again.
Colorado has neither, so everything goes in bulk recycle.
I gladly take everyone's recyclables. Straight to the center for cash! Everyone in the office puts their empties in a bag I keep in my office at work and then I stop by my friend's houses when they ask me to. I just line them up on the side of the house until I get a good sized load. The last trip I made took me 30 min and netted me 104 bucks.
And yes, rejected... because you have to stand and slowly feed the intact, undamaged items into collection machines, which have about a 90% accuracy rate of reading the barcodes. Can't crush the cans. Can't do any kind of bulk drop. Machine bins frequently fill up and you have to wait for a grumpy grocery store employee to come switch bins, reset faults, fix jams.
Yep! Same here. They have a couple of shopping carts as well where we can put the bottles/cans that have been rejected by the machine.
I usually bring whatever I have right before I do my grocery shopping - the employee either gives you cash or a voucher for your purchases in the store, whatever you prefer.
Over time I've noticed that several elderly people come every day with their shopping trolleys filled with bottles.
I gladly take everyone's recyclables. Straight to the center for cash! Everyone in the office puts their empties in a bag I keep in my office at work and then I stop by my friend's houses when they ask me to. I just line them up on the side of the house until I get a good sized load. The last trip I made took me 30 min and netted me 104 bucks.
If they don't want their money I'll take it.
Well-done.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
