Interesting... (home, to buy, high school)

[virginia farm girl]

Shades of 'Seinfeld': Maine bottle scam alleged - Yahoo! News (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110211/ap_on_fe_st/us_bottle_scam - broken link)

[square peg]

Yeah, a little bit interesting. I buy a few containers in NH from time to time and put them in with my cans when I redeem them in VT. I guess the playing field could be leveled in a couple of ways.

1. Have the manufacturer pad for a refund in all states through a slightly higher purchase price.
2. Have the same bottle laws in all 50 states.

Otherwise this will just go on and on. Seems the only people being hurt by this are the manufacturers. They could fix it by simply using a calculator.

[Kiwiluver]

I have often thought of doing that. I seriously did not know it was against the law. Many bottles here have the deposit thingy on them. I think Maine was the 1st state to do that. I seem to remember it coming in when I was at my grandparents when I came home from my Asian high school graduation trip.

[starwalker]

I like it better in places where you just turn any can, bottle, glass jar, plastic container in for the recycle, because it is the right thing to do. But folks won't, I guess, since many won't even take the time to separate out the "nickels." I am still frustrated by the lack of plastic jar recycling in Maine. Yeah, milk jugs and the like, but MOST plastic is not able to be recycled here. I am a "recycle nazi" so there are many things I am reluctant to buy and, were I shopping only for myself, I would not.

[Coaster]

Originally Posted by starwalker

I like it better in places where you just turn any can, bottle, glass jar, plastic container in for the recycle, because it is the right thing to do. But folks won't, I guess, since many won't even take the time to separate out the "nickels." I am still frustrated by the lack of plastic jar recycling in Maine. Yeah, milk jugs and the like, but MOST plastic is not able to be recycled here. I am a "recycle nazi" so there are many things I am reluctant to buy and, were I shopping only for myself, I would not.

Plastic recycling depends on the town, I think, Starwalker. I live in the Midcoast and we can recycle any plastic that has the triangular emblem on it. That's essentially every container made of plastic.

Square Peg said:

Have the same bottle laws in all 50 states.

You'd think this would be the logical, rational thing to do, and it was headed that way in the early 1980s when a national Bottle Bill was introduced. But the container and supermarket industries HATE bottle laws, and they fought it tooth and nail in Congress.

[Maineah]

I think the deposit law in Maine should be repealed. Beverages would cost considerably less if distributors didn't have to deal with a zillion empty cans and bottles.

[wordsmith680]

I was against the bottle deposit from the get go. I have changed my mind. Here in the UP there are a number of people who regardless of the winter weather have a daily routine to scourer the entire area for discarded cans. For some it is their only income and there is no trash laying around. As a rural area we too have limited recycling and its bound to get worse in the current political climate. And to say on topic......there are threats to prosecute any scofflaws who turn in Wisconsin cans for a MI deposit. It happens all the time, I'm sure. IMO a nationwide law would be smart, but no chance of it happening. (WI has a strong tavern league and used to have big breweries, hence no deposit.)

[Coaster]

Originally Posted by Maineah

I think the deposit law in Maine should be repealed. Beverages would cost considerably less if distributors didn't have to deal with a zillion empty cans and bottles.

I could see that argument if beverage costs actually were "considerably" lower in non-Bottle Bill states (independent of the deposits themselves), but I haven't seen any evidence of it, to be honest. Granted, I have limited experience -- NH and Nebraska most recently. Can you cite some numbers, Maineah?

[Newdaawn]

I'm old enough to remember when the streets, roads and highways in Maine were used as dumps for beer cans and bottles mostly with some soda bottles, and that was the motivation for us to be the first state to have "returnables". Maine's roads were becoming a disgusting mess. It was a good idea then and still is . It cleaned up the sides of the roads almost immediately. No one wants to go back to that. I think this is being made a big story as LePage would like to do away with the law as, to him, it is something that "business" doesn't want to deal with.

[OutDoorNut]

Originally Posted by Newdaawn

I'm old enough to remember when the streets, roads and highways in Maine were used as dumps for beer cans and bottles mostly with some soda bottles, and that was the motivation for us to be the first state to have "returnables". Maine's roads were becoming a disgusting mess. It was a good idea then and still is . It cleaned up the sides of the roads almost immediately. No one wants to go back to that. I think this is being made a big story as LePage would like to do away with the law as, to him, it is something that "business" doesn't want to deal with.

I'm old enough to remember when manufacturers switched from glass bottles to plastic bottles (the contents of which, I swear, do not taste as good as from a glass bottle), the excuse for doing so was that the consumer would no longer have to pay a deposit and return the bottle.

After a few years of those disoposable plastic bottles becoming a major component of litter, they then also required a desposit, so you had to return them too.

Similar to when cable TV first came out--it's great, you pay to watch it, so there's no commercials!

Or when pop-top beverage cans made their appearance: no can opener (church keys, they were called) needed!

Wouldn't you know, it wasn't long before supermakrets were selling a pop-top can opener.