I was looking at the back of my soda bottle, and saw the Recycle symbol, and underneath was CA CRV and then list of states that offer 5 or 10 cent refund. Since I’ve never seen Walmart, Aldi’s, Save a lot redeem bottles or cans, has anyone else ever gotten refund?
Of course, being an old man, back in 50’s and 60’s, local grocers would buy back glass bottles for 2-5 cents for reuse
it’s just a recycling mark like the crv except its a stated amount … you take it to an “modern” recycling place (usually scrap yards) or one of those places that’s just a scale and trailer in a parking lot and they haul it off when the trailers full although sometimes its a vending machine looking thing where you put the can/bottle in a slot and the barcode gets scanned and gets crushed and you get the nickel or dime
I live in Québec, Canada.
If you buy a drink in a bottle or a can, in any retail store in Québec, you pay a mandatory deposit to the retailer, maybe 5 or 10 cents depending on the type and size of container.
All medium or large supermarkets here have machines in which you insert plastic bottles or (different machine) soda or beer cans. The machine validates that the container is about the correct shape, etc., on the assumption that each category is worth the same number of cents. (It also validates that’s it’s light enough to be empty, because a full bottle would make a mess at the next step…) Then it crushes the container to save space. You can put in as many containers as you want. When your transaction is finished, if prints out a receipt which you can redeem for cash at the cash register.
The crushed containers are then sent to the recycling plant.
The grocers’ association grumbles about this system occasionally. It seems they make very little money from their participation, especially since the machines do need to be emptied, unblocked, etc. by supermarket staff. And you can buy your beer cans at the corner convenience store but eventually you’ll bring them to the supermarket for a refund, it’s unclear how the money flows in such a case.
You’ve never seen the bottle crushing machines at the front of supermarkets? I find that hard to believe.
Presumably that depends on the state. I’ve never seen one. Seinfeld is about my only reference for getting a refund on bottles/cans. So far as I know, those don’t exist in my state (Wisconsin).
ETA: Actually, whenever I hear “no deposit, no return” I always go back to this. It’s one of those things that’s burned into my memory.
I remember when Michigan instituted (or - actually returned to) bottle refunds as law. A lot of litter seemed to disappear. The contrast was especially noticeable if a trip or shopping expedition happened to include going to Ohio which did not have a deposit law. Unfortunately the shift to nondeposit water bottles and noncarbonated drinks means that some litter has returned.
One Detroit fireman (er… fireperson?) wrote about schoolkids deliberately littering with their soft drink cans as they passed the firehouse. At first the personnel were mad, then they found that they could collect enough that the returns kept the firehouse stocked with “elegant desserts” (their phrase).
I’ve seen kids running through sports stadiums after the games, collecting HUGE bags of cans.
I’ve never seen such machinery at supermarkets in WI either.
I’ve never seen one in my area and a search for one “near me” shows them present a 4 hour drive from here.
Where are you located? I’ve lived in Texas, California, Illinois and Georgia. Never saw one.
New York. They’re ubiquitous in every supermarket I’ve ever been in. Homeless people going around collecting bottles and cans in huge bags is a commonly seen thing. I grew up on Long Island and we would always take the used cans in to get the refund.
I’m in Oregon. Yesterday I went to a bottle/can return center and received back $6.40 that I paid as deposit fees when I bought the beverages. The groceries around here no longer have recycle or redeem options since we all have recycling carts.
In my household, I can put the refund toward my travel account since otherwise we’d put the bottles and cans in our recycling cart. In some areas, people separate the returnables out so anyone scavenging can find them easily.
In California you have to take the returns to an authorized recycling center — which are few and far between. Not back to the supermarket. That’s why we don’t have those machines around here.
The only time I’ve seen anything like that was when I was a kid, long before curbside recycling. The local grocery had a single machine that you’d put an aluminum can into and it would crush it in two 2 movements inside, crunch-thump. It was for scrap, not deposits, though, and it took a lot of cans to get more than a few cents. A can of the store brand pop was 19 cents, as I recall, so that was the target.
I haven’t thought about that in years.
No one has seen the Seinfeld episode where Kramer and Newman attempt to take bottles to Michigan?
actually, we did have the machines here because it was owned by one of the grocery chains but they quit because it was too much hassle but recycle planet was a machine-based thing
Around here, some folks go into people’s back yards or garages and steal the cans.
Back when I drank (I quit a few years ago), I would always give my empties to a vet in a wheelchair every week, instead of returning to the store and getting my deposit back. I couldn’t be bothered.
Also–a lot of boy and girl scout troops do bottle/can drives to raise money.
I mentioned it.
Because RePlanet, the biggest chain of recycling centers in the state, went out of business a few years ago. That left a bunch of communities without a convenient place to return cans/bottles.
People actually try to do that sort of thing in real life, like bring a truckload of cans and bottles from Arizona or Nevada to California. If you try to return over a certain amount, the recycling center is supposed to check the license plate on your vehicle to make sure you’re not from out of state.
Do they still do that? My Cub Scout pack did it in the 1980s, but from what I understand once most cities started doing curbside recycling the scrap value of cans dropped so much it’s not worth it anymore. But I guess in a state where cans have a redemption value it might still be worthwhile; people would essentially be donating the deposit to the organization.
Those were the good days. From an environmental perspective, this is the best arrangement since the recycling onus was on the industry using the bottles in the first place. They would indeed reuse the bottle.
The industry now passes the buck to the consumer and the plastic bottles do not get reused. Only about 10-15% of the plastic actually gets recycled and most of it gets downcycled not really recycled.
Plastic recycling is a scam - do not waste your time.
Aluminum can recycle does indeed happen, but it too carries the risk of dioxins in the recycling process.
Yeah–they still do it. There are a lot of folks (like me) who can’t be bothered with returning the cans for the deposit.