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Well, I've been returning bottles for their deposits since the 1960s when Coke bottles were made of glass and came in wooden crates and they actually washed and re-used them. I don't go round picking up bottles, I just return my own. How much have I gotten back in deposits in the last 50 years? Gee, that's pretty hard to estimate. $500? $1000? heck, I just don't even have a rough idea.
I think they increased it to 10 cents in OR, which is terrible as it makes everything too expensive, but I’ve never once returned any of them for money. I just throw them right into recycling. The nearby grocery stores don’t even have processing at all, you have to go downtown or far away, I don’t think anyone does that. Nobody I know anyway. Not worth the time and it amounts to just another tax. I’m moving to a no bottle deposit state soon so I won’t be worried about it anymore. Just another stupid thing about OR. That’s what the recycling bin is for, we all use it.
We had a bunch of glass beer bottles but it was too much of a pain to return them. I think there were some other glass bottles in there too--but a store would only take it if you had bought it there.
As someone said, this is backward CT. Finally I just gave the bottles to an out of state friend who likes to return bottles. It's too much trouble to haul heavy bags of bottles into the grocery store and feed them into machines, then stand in line at the counter to get a slip of paper worth maybe 35 cents. I very rarely have bottles around the house anyway, or cans either.
In New Jersey, where I live, they just go into recycling. There's no bottle deposit.
In New York, where I work, I put them in the corner trash bins for the homeless to fish out and get the money. If it's the kind with the flat rim running around the opening, I leave it on there.
Amusing antidote..where I used to live, there was a can/bottle return and next door was where you converted the receipt for cash... a state liquor store!
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?
I used to do it only to help get back the money I paid out for the returns. I was THRILLED when Cub Foods (Now Winco) installed those machines. I had gotten tired of arguing with bottle/can counters ALWAYS trying to gyp me for .30-.50 cents.... I once grabbed the manager of the Thriftway, showed him what I had (200 cans) and went to a clerk. They counted me $9.45 I then called the manager over they got mad when I showed their manager how they tried to cheat me.
That's when I quit returning till Cub Foods made it a pleasure.
I am at my summer location in Germany. At the big local supermarket I see lines of people at the automated bottle return (looks like giant soda vending machines) where people bring empty glass, plastic and aluminum beverage containers for cash. There are separate machines for each type of container material. You feed in the bottles or cans one at a time, the machine counts them up and prints out a receipt for you. You take the receipt to the cashier after grocery shopping, and the bottle or can return amount is subtracted from your grocery bill (or redeem for cash). No other human interaction is required, no haggling, very simple & fast.
I have not seen this in the US at big grocery stores. Seems odd that they would not adopt something like this.
I've never returned containers except in two states where there was a significant deposit - CA and CT. And then only my own. California's system got refined and streamlined over the years to where it was easy to use; CT, being behind the times and always starting at the same point some other state did 20 years earlier, was almost more work than it was worth.
But if you're counting income from can scavenging, I think you're somewhere below 'frugal living.'
i look at collecting bottles from the trash as the same as reusing paper towels and drying them out ...
that is not frugal ...that crosses the frugal line .
i look at collecting bottles from the trash as the same as reusing paper towels and drying them out ...
that is not frugal ...that crosses the frugal line .
yeah, let the homeless people make a few bucks.
we have a full time cleaning guy in the office here and i see that he is collecting the recyclables. i assume he is getting the few cents for them.
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