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Do those recycling numbers take into account the number of people who don't pay a deposit, but get a deposit back? IE people buying sodas in Ohio and then takin
by oh_sigh 5y ago
Do those recycling numbers take into account the number of people who don't pay a deposit, but get a deposit back? IE people buying sodas in Ohio and then taking them to Michigan to redeem a deposit?
- EvanAnderson 5y agoThe containers are marked with a Michigan deposit logo, assuming anybody looks.
- oh_sigh 5y agoYes - when a person buys a bottle in Michigan, 10 cents is added to the cost. When they return the bottle to Michigan, 10 cents is given to them. However, when a person buys a bottle in Ohio, 0 cents is added to the cost. And they can't return the bottle anywhere in Ohio for any money. However, they can return the bottle in Michigan for 10 cents, even though they never paid the deposit in the first place. So in that sense, naively doing (bottles returned)/(bottles sold) to determine the recycling rate of a state is wrong, because people will return bottles that were never sold in the state to begin with. So it would literally be possible to have a >100% recycling rate which doesn't make any sense.