Let me explain:
In Las Vegas, they give you crates and you put your recycling (plastic, cans, paper and glass) out every other week, and they pick them up in a special recycling truck.
So, lately, someone is driving down our street and taking the plastic bottles and cans in the middle of the night, before the “official” truck arrives in the morning from the Silver State Disposal (our garbage and recycling company).
It is pretty easy to figure out why. Here in Las Vegas (and all of Nevada), there is no surcharge on plastic or cans - but in neighboring California, I believe it is 5 cents for each two liter plastic bottle, and a few cents for each can. Someone is obviously taking the bottles and cans from here, driving over to California and turning them in for money. BTW, they never touch the paper or glass - no profit in that in California.
I happened to see the recycling truck last week and spoke briefly with the driver and he said, “Yes, this is happening more and more throughout Las Vegas.” and he also agreed it was most likely someone taking it all to California for cash refund.
So - the recycling is getting recycled (of that I am pretty certain), so should I be pissed that someone is taking them and making a profit off it it, or should I just say, “who cares, as long as it is not thrown into a garbage dump!”
I can think of two reasons it’s a bad idea to let this continue.
In theory, the five cents you get for a can in California is a return of the five cent deposit you gave when you bought the full can. If people return more cans than are sold, the system runs at a deficit. If they cancel their recycling program, that’s more cans to the landfills.
The curbside recycling in Vegas probably takes a hit, too. I suspect that program was budgeted with the expectation that the value of the material collected would help cover the costs. If they’re collecting less than expected, Las Vegas might cut back on their curbside pickup.
However, I can’t think of a whole lot that you can do about it. Ideally, there would be some way to identify sold-in-California cans so only they could be returned there. Or the Vegas police could start busting the people who are taking the cans. (I’m not exactly sure what to charge them with, though.)
You know…I really wish that some of the street/homeless canners out there would do what I do. Namely, when they take empties from recyling bins, they put something back. It isn’;t that hard to find an empty (non rededemible) plastic bottle on the street!
Why would they bother to go all the way over to California? Aren’t there any recyclers in Nevada who’ll pay for the materials?
Is that really the way California’s system is supposed to work?
I always thought the 5 cents was a tax you pay for throwing things in the landfill which otherwise could be recycled, to harm the environment less. If you can find a government recycling place that will pay you five cents for your can, great. But usually you can’t, so you sell your can to a private recycling place that pays you less, by the weight. They, in turn, acquire salable materials.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought most cities don’t run their recycling programs really to fund themselves financially. Some come close, but most are just barely breaking even.
And in the case of Las Vegas, if someone comes along and takes recyclables from your trash, they are taking only certain materials, and I imagine that they recoop some of the expense. And the city still is keeping the other materials from simply being buried or burnt.
I saw a new item on television about Mexican immigrants, a man and his wife, who were saving every penny they could to put their children through college. Finding items with refunds was one of the things they did together at night dressed in coveralls.
If I remember correctly, one son was through medical or law school and would be helping the next one in line. Feel free to correct me on the details.
Individual families willing to work that hard need those pennies even more than the states do, in my opinion. Being totally cut off from your state might make a difference in their lives – maybe in what they can feed their children. If people are that desperate, can’t you just look the other way? Now if there is a big crisis in bottles not being returned to the recycling plant, then I would reconsider.
Whilst I see the sense in Robot Arm’s arguments, I think if it’s just one or two people doing this, then it’s not going to be sufficient to impact on state/federal budgets and that kind of thing.
I think that the sort of person who would go to the trouble of doing this is the sort of person who is living on a very low income where every cent helps. So I’d take the, ‘Hey, if they’re willing to go to that trouble to earn a few dollars, good on them’ attitude.
Massachusetts (where I live) has a five-cent deposit on cans, so I assume California is similar.
Here’s how it works where I live. When I go to the grocery store and buy a six-pack of soda, it rings up the price of the soda, plus 30 cents as a deposit on the cans. Near the front door of the store is a room with machines like this. Once I drink all the soda, I bring the empty cans back to the store and feed them into the machine. Each can is scanned and either accepted or rejected. When I’m done, it prints a ticket that I can take to one of the cashiers and get back 5 cents for each can. In theory, I’m just getting back the deposit; but there’s no way to know what store a particular can of Coke came from, so I think there must be a clearing house of some kind. And for every can that doesn’t get returned, someone (probably the state) gets to keep that nickel.
There’s some fraud protection in the system. The machines scan the objects that are fed into them to make sure they’re valid cans. Among other things, it scans for the bar code. I think a store only has to pay out on things that they actually sell, so if you’ve got a can of Guatemalan ginger ale you bought at Whole Foods, you’ll have to take it back there to get your nickel back. The machine crushes each can, so a store employee can’t feed one can through a thousand times and scam the system.
I’m all for recycling, but the way they do it here is a huge hassle. The deposit is supposed to be an incentive, but I’ve never heard if it works any better than states where people can just leave their recycling at the curb. The simple solution would be to use a different bar code on cans sold in states that require a deposit.
Yeah, one or two people are probably not going to bring the recycling industry to its knees. My first post was just trying to figure out who’s getting the short end of the stick. Solving it may be more trouble than it’s worth. Although, ask the grocery store managers on the California side of the border if they like paying out more than they bring in in deposits.
In Germany and the Netherlands the deposit is 25(euro)cents I believe…so it’s worthwhile the hassle but I give to you that for a nickel a can/bottle it’s really not worth it
I’m sure they don’t pay out in California. In fact, I’m almost certain of it. Note the side of your soda can that you bought in Massachusetts: It says DE-IA-MA-CT-NY-HI-OR-5c MI-10c CA - CASH REFUND.
Now go to Nevada and purchase a can of soda. Or, save yourself some time and just take a drive up to NH. Notice that it does NOT have any refund information on the can. Drive to your local Massachusetts Stop and Shop location, and try to return that can for a deposit refund: It’ll get rejected by the scanner, because it’s not a deposit can.
Nobody is stealing recycling in NV and successfully taking it to California for a deposit. They’re selling it to a scrap metal dealer.
The only place that such a scam works would be to pull the Seinfeld, taking cans from one deposit state and driving them to Michigan for the 10c refund.
We don’t have any nearby states with a better deal on your recyclables, so I have no problem whatsoever with the creepy guy with the shopping cart. (I believe he is also Limping Drunk who Yells at Dogs Down the Street, but it’s dark when he does it so I’m not sure.) Doesn’t do me any harm, I don’t think the city’s hurting from the actions of a couple can thieves, and at least he’s doing something.
I can’t speak for other locales, but in Austin, recycling is a business, heavily regulated by the City. We put out our cans, glass, plastic, paper, what have you and the truck comes along and recycles everything. The recyclers make a healthy profit on cans, probably break even on the paper and glass and lose money on the plastic.
The recyclers are required by the city to recycle the plastic, but that’s OK for them as the profits from the cans more than make up for it. If someone starts stealing cans on a regular basis, then the equation changes. Recycling stops being a profitable business.
That leaves the City with two options. Either stop recycling, or using my tax dollars to pay for recycling. I’d rather keep the business tycoons and hippy liberals happy and not have folks steal my stuff.
I live and recycle in CA.
I have never seen a can-scanning machine. We take out cans to a recycler, usually behind most every large grocery store and get paid by weight. I’ve never seen them check the cans for the “cash refund” notation, although I’ve seen the notation. I’m betting you COULD get the refund from NV cans.
YMMV
This is the only way that I recycle. I toss everything in the regular trash. Anything of value, the alley bums will resurrect and take somewhere for cash, which they in turn recycle into booze, and eventually another empty bottle. It’s the circle of life.
Regarding stolen recycling in Las Vegas, why should you begrudge somebody making a profit, if that profit does not come out of your (or your state’s) pocket? Just be glad your land-fill volume is going down…TRM
That’s how I had to recycle in San Francisco when I lived there and it was a major hassle because I had to wait in line with the shopping cart bums and families of professional can collectors who would put one member in each line until one would get to the front and then they’d all start passing their bags to each other. When one machine would run out of money they’d pass their bags to the next one to get to the front of a line. You could literally be in line for 2 hours to cash in $3 worth of crappy soda cans (and by then the machine would only have pennies left in it.)
Now that I live in the suburbs I just take them to a recycler for cash by weight (even though we have curbside recycling.) Why yes! If you don’t want the bums stealing them you can cash them in yourself!
Yes, you should care. As far as those cans/bottles going into a landfill, at this point they weren’t going there in any case. There was really no more chance of them winding up in a landfill once you had sorted and put them out at the curb and paid taxes to support home pickup than there was of actual nickels winding up in a landfill. You should be glad that both states have wised up to the fact that we should recycle, and I’m not saying you should stay up nights worrying about it, but the person who is taking them is appropriating resources that do not belong to them, to the detriment of others.
Continuing the Can Machine hijack: The can machines are a pain in the ass. I take my cans back to a beverage wholesaler who is happy to take any cans that are pre-counted. The longest part of bottle/can return is the time it takes to carry them inside.
Of course you are allowed to be upset. Either they are stealing from you; or they are stealing from your trash company (which is going to have to up your costs when they don’t make the expected amount of money from recycling).
However, if you can bring yourself to not care about it, or to think of it as charity to those who are taking your cans, you are also allowed to *not *be upset.
