5 ms·
Growing up in California, I assumed the bottle deposit system was a federal thing. Moving to North Carolina and seeing people causally throw away glass bottles
by elektor 8y ago
Growing up in California, I assumed the bottle deposit system was a federal thing. Moving to North Carolina and seeing people causally throw away glass bottles into the trash was definitely a cultural shock for me.
Kudos to Oregon for doing this.
- warmwaffles 8y agoHead to the midwest. No one wants to run a recycling operation. You'll see people throw away plastics, metals, and glass all the time. Recycle bins are hard to find when you don't live in a city.
- jgroszko 8y agoMichigan has had a similar 10c bottle return program for decades... Was a popular fundraiser for High School clubs
- pmiller2 8y agoPeople return bottles and cans in Michigan, though, because of the 10 cent deposit and the fact you can return them directly to any store that sells the product. Not having to go to a recycling center is huge. They are generally picked up and, presumably, recycled, by the bottler.
- SlowRobotAhead 8y agoIn case people aren't from Michigan and don't understand how this works... Many stores have automated scanning machines. You feel UNCRUSHED bottles and cans in, a worm drive spins them around while scanning for the barcode. If that can was sold in MI, you get a .10 credit. You just stand there feeding them in at bigger stores. Many of the grocery stores devoted a portion of their cart storage / entry to these machines. It's important to note that they are required to be uncrushed because it's a pain in the ass storing full size empties imo.
- thoughtpalette 8y agoMoved away from MI, but I was not a fan of getting gross old soda on my hands when feeding them into the machines. The .10c is something I'm missing though.
- penagwin 8y agoI've lived in MI since I was 7, I remember developing "strategies" for how I reach my hand in, the orientation of the grab, etc. to minimize "splash". Those with "real pop addictions" won't have any issues though ;)
- astura 8y agoThat's why you buy a pack of latex gloves. I don't see anyone redeeming bottles/cans without wearing gloves.
- thoughtpalette 8y agoMy adolescent mind was not that sharp, but that's a great idea.
- astura 8y agoThese are called "reverse vending machines." They are a pain in the ass though because they are always filling up and/or jamming and then you have to call and wait for staff to come fix it. If you are redeeming a whole cart of bottles you're going to have to call the staff over at least a couples times. They are always in use so you have to wait. The rooms they are in are nasty and sticky. The bar code reader doesn't always work the first time (and sometimes doesn't work at all for some bottles) so you're constantly refeeding them into the machine. They get a TON of use, so they go out of order frequently. My grocery store just got brand new ones and they are better than the last ones they had still have problems.
- vidarh 8y agoThis is how it works in Norway too, and I think it's absolutely essential if you want to make these schemes maximize the redemption rates. The law that established the excise tax on the bottles has a clause that basically reduces the tax relative to the sellers redemption rate, so the stores have a financial reason to accept the bottles, as the excise tax is higher than the cost of participating in a recycling program.
- baddox 8y agoTo be fair, it’s probably much more expensive to run a residential recycling collection program in areas of low population density.
- rconti 8y agoLiving in California, I've never once redeemed a bottle. I toss it into the recycling bin.
- wtvanhest 8y agoI don't think there are places in the city to take them. You need a car.
- schoen 8y agoIf you mean San Francisco, there used to be a place next to the Castro Safeway, but apparently now there are only places down on Bayshore.
- wtvanhest 8y agoIMO, the law needs to change. If you don't have a place to drop off bottles/cans within 3 miles, the tax should be removed from items in those areas. It is completely pointless to have an incentive that can only be achieved by driving for 45 minutes.
- schoen 8y agoI think it's much harder to claim CRV refunds, and many fewer people do so regularly, than the designers of the system anticipated.
- wtvanhest 8y agoAt this point its simply a tax. I'm pretty sure that the people who collect them from trash cans gets cents on the dollars for the cans and a middle man is making the profit on transportation of the cans.
- drdeadringer 8y agoAt a strip mall near where I live [in a city], where there is a grocery store as an anchor, the Goodwill donation truck also does bottle recycling. I'm fortunate that I am within walking distance, but I do "save up" the bottles to make the walk -- and haul -- "worth it".
- giarc 8y agoProblem is there is no market for recycled glass. In my city, at one of the landfills there is a giant pile of glass bottles that just sits out all year.
- pinot 8y agoYou might be too far from a glass plant to make it worthwhile, but there's certainly a market for recycled glass. The O-I glass plant my company buys glass here in Oregon from uses 60% of 'cullet' - recycled glass, in their mix.