My bottle return story

I wish we had a deposit law here in WA. I moved here 18 years ago, and one of the first things that struck me was, for as environmentally green as this state was, and is, we still don't have a deposit law. It saddens me to see craft beer empties alongside an otherwise pristine trail.

 

Before I moved here, I lived in Upstate NY, where there was a deposit law. After a few years of arguments like you describe above, stores just started installing machines that read the bar codes. After all, it's only a handful of distributors that a given store deals with, and even if a given brand isn't sold at a given store, that store likely carries another brand from the same distributor.

It's in the distributors best interest to keep the stores happy.

 

Agreed. But, keep after it, they'll come around. Especially if you tag the breweries ,along with the store, on the more mainstream social media.

 

NC with no returnables as well. 45+ yrs ago, the concept funded childhood with coke bottles.

 

My returns are easy. I return mine to the trash can in the kitchen or the garage. I will sacrifice a nickle to get it out of my life. As far as recycling bottles goes "from the earth it came and to the earth it shall return".

 

I recycle as much as possible, the bar-code readers don't like craft beer cans.
Last time I recycled cans, bottles and plastic I was left with 30 cans that would not scan. Mostly local stuff.

 

I dump them in one of Ripple Glass, co-founded by Boulevard, containers around town. No money return.

Although that may stop. My area of town lost its Ripple Glass recycling bin due to a store closing and the lot being shut down.

 

No deposits here in NH. I used to like collecting cans after family parties as a kid and getting a little extra money. Bought a crap ton of Garbage Pail Kids that way.

 

No deposit here in Minnesota. My apartment doesn't have recycling, but work does, so I take everything that can be recycled and dump it off at work.

 

Slightly off-topic, but if you haven't had a tetanus shot in the last 10 years you should probably call your doctor. (I speak as someone who sliced up my thumb about a month ago - 6 stitches).

 

I don't get the whole concept. First, if environmental concerns are the issue, then why exclude water bottles, tea bottles, Gatorade bottles, etc. from the deposit? Second, what difference does it make to the grocery store if you're redeeming bottles and cans that you didn't buy there? They should be able to get their money anyway. Deposit laws make the retailers de facto tax collection agencies. Yeah, I get that there are space and sanitation issues, but, hey, unintended consequences, right? Third, I'd bet a month's pay that the legislators who enact these deposit laws have never spent one minute in a bottle & can redemption center. These places are colossal pains in the ass. They are filthy, the wait times can be unbearable, and there seems to be no rhyme nor reason governing what they'll accept and what they won't. (As if politicians would give a damn anyway.) Fourth, I see all sorts of pop and beer bottles and cans lying by the sides of the roads and trails anyway. Pigs are going to be pigs. Like Ron White says, you can't fix stupid.

Sorry. I'm going to take my meds now.

 

Redemption center has incredible beer selection. Every time I return bottles, I spend at least 3 times that much on new finds. The horror!

 

That's an odd story. Owner of a liquor store, may be a prick- but employee at a grocery store, not "their money" what the hell does he care? I have never not even once experienced anything close to what you are saying.

When I worked at a retailer (long time ago) they instructed us "don't confront a customer even if you KNOW they are shoplifting."

The consensus response "don't worry, we won't."

 

Out here we pay the the same CRV for glass bottles as we do for aluminum cans. You get quite a bit more $ back when taking aluminum to the recycling center.