/just gettin' it out of the way...

Damn freedom hating recycling abusers.

It's good we'll have someone new to hate long after the election.

Bigger problem: people throwing JFK's golf clubs at you on the highway.

Lionel Mandrake: /just gettin' it out of the way...

Yeah that's why i came in here too.

Hawaii doesn't have that problem. While some guys sailed a raft made out of bottles from California, the deposit is less than that in California.

You would have to live close to Michigan to make it worth it.

Oddly enough, one of the few episodes of Seinfeld I remember.

Even bigger problem: No one has ruled Keith Hernandez out of the Magic Loogie Theory

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkCQ8qR5-i0

Oh ACORN, have you no shame?

/this could be the biggest recycling fraud in our nation's history!

Lionel Mandrake

"Nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine bottles and cans in the truck;
Nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine bottles and cans!
At ten cents a bottle and ten cents a can,
We're pulling in five hundred dollars a man!

Nine thousand nine hundred and ninety eight bottles and cans in the truck;
Nine thousand nine hundred and ninety eight bottles and cans!
We fill up on gas, we count up our cash!"

Dissolve into maniacal laughter..

But it's best to do it on Mother's day

simpsonfan
You would have to live close to Michigan to make it worth it.

Or be like some enterprising folks here who had the thought
"25 Cents for bringing back a plastic bottle that you get for less than 10 Cents if you buy a truckload of them at the plastic bottle factory?
That's a pretty good return on investment.."

came for the Seinfeld screencap - not disappointed

It's called summer vacation money for everyone who lives in the Midwest. Buy alot of beer in Wisconsin(while taking a few bags of all ready crushed cans), go fish for a week in Michigan, deposit said beer cans, get a few bucks back for some dinner.

/soda is also acceptable.
//but not while fishing.

It's known as arbitrage.

UPC symbols largely stopped this - only those cans from Michigan are coded to have a deposit.

And why does this threaten anyone's freedom?

/Except the citizens of Michigan who are stuck with the stupid deposit law

The concerns of the "state is losing money" are bogus - the redemption deposits are like rebates - probably only 60% ever gets redeemed.

I did this a bunch of times in law school. Save up cans for a semester, then cash in when I came home for the holidays. The results were disappointing... a couple months of work added up to about $20.

I didn't realize it was illegal until my third year, when the Meijer's starting putting up signs to that effect.

It took awhile to get used to just throwing cans and bottles away like we do in Chicago.

iawai: UPC symbols largely stopped this - only those cans from Michigan are coded to have a deposit.

And why does this threaten anyone's freedom?

/Except the citizens of Michigan who are stuck with the stupid deposit law

That seems unlikely though. NY does deposits, and I sometimes get groceries in NJ when visiting the parents. The cans go through the deposit machine just fine.

Question: When did a deposit become actual free money for the state? Isn't the idea that you get the deposit back if you recycle? Hence, who cares where the can or bottle came from originally. The state took money as a deposit to encourage recycling and someone other then the original person is recycling. Its like those state Found Money funds. If no one collects the money, it goes back to the state. It wasn't until people started looking into this and busting the state for it did the laws change.

Gotta love government's way of thinking.

Smellvin: Bigger problem: people throwing JFK's golf clubs at you on the highway.

came for this one, actually.

Saginaw Michigan in the house!

xCh: The concerns of the "state is losing money" are bogus - the redemption deposits are like rebates - probably only 60% ever gets redeemed.

You obviously don't come from Michigan.

I moved out to Washington a few years ago. WA doesn't have any deposit at all. It took me many months to stop freaking out every time someone threw a bottle in the trash. We take our pop bottle returns very seriously in Michigan.

/Of course now I just toss them in the trash. After all, if I'm not getting money for it, why should I recycle?

xCh: The concerns of the "state is losing money" are bogus - the redemption deposits are like rebates - probably only 60% ever gets redeemed.

FTFA:

Despite the problems, Michigan's recycling rate for cans and bottles is a successful 97 percent.

Reading comprehension FTW.

The real fraud is being committed by the state of California. There used to be recycling machines at every grocery store of a certain size and you could easily recycle the week's bottles and cans and collect your deposit. They soon got rid of them and to add insult to injury they jacked up the price of the deposit by 50%. Nobody but Mexicans, bums and fraudsters recycles because it doesn't make economic sense to cart the average number of cans to a center now and the state makes out like a bandit on the free money they sold everybody on as a deposit. I hope this comes up on a proposition because it would get voted out overwhelmingly.

Software2: xCh: The concerns of the "state is losing money" are bogus - the redemption deposits are like rebates - probably only 60% ever gets redeemed.

You obviously don't come from Michigan.

I moved out to Washington a few years ago. WA doesn't have any deposit at all. It took me many months to stop freaking out every time someone threw a bottle in the trash. We take our pop bottle returns very seriously in Michigan.

/Of course now I just toss them in the trash. After all, if I'm not getting money for it, why should I recycle?

Same.

/Arizona now

Since the point of these programs is revenue, not recycling and all.....

I see this all the time around here. Bums will fill up huge 100 gallon garbage bags with cans, tie them to their bike and ride them across I5 bridge to the Safeway in Oregon and cash them in. Now Oregon is thinking of having deposits on plastic water and soda bottles too.

Legal or not it does keep things a little cleaner around here.

jfarkinB: problems, Michigan's recycling rate for cans and bottles is a successful 97%

Recycing rate != redemption rate

I recycle almost all of my bottles and cans in California, but I don't get me deposit money back when I do.

Todays newest threat to our freedom: People

I think I fixed that for you, Smitty

hangtime79: Question: When did a deposit become actual free money for the state? Isn't the idea that you get the deposit back if you recycle? Hence, who cares where the can or bottle came from originally. The state took money as a deposit to encourage recycling and someone other then the original person is recycling.

Uh, only 11 states have deposit laws.

You buy cans in one of the other 39 states - deposit free - then take them to a state with a deposit law, redeem it, and get cash back that you never paid out in the first place.

iawai UPC symbols largely stopped this - only those cans from Michigan are coded to have a deposit.

That's right.

OscarTamerz: The real fraud is being committed by the state of California. There used to be recycling machines at every grocery store of a certain size and you could easily recycle the week's bottles and cans and collect your deposit. They soon got rid of them and to add insult to injury they jacked up the price of the deposit by 50%. Nobody but Mexicans, bums and fraudsters recycles because it doesn't make economic sense to cart the average number of cans to a center now and the state makes out like a bandit on the free money they sold everybody on as a deposit. I hope this comes up on a proposition because it would get voted out overwhelmingly.

Here here. The few deposit redemption places that are still in operation around me in CA do everything by weight rather than per bottle, and I strongly suspect that they end up shorting you. We use to keep bags and bags of empty bottles and cans on the porch and end up getting like five bucks for our effort. We dump our bottles in the collective recycling bins at our apartment now, don't know who gets the money.

I can haz Interstate Commerce?

LMark: iawai UPC symbols largely stopped this - only those cans from Michigan are coded to have a deposit.

That's right.


That's actually wrong.


/don't ask

Does anyone know if this is illegal in Quebec?

The TFA said the word "pop". So I stopped reading.

/illiterare effin midwesterners

Anyone have thirty THOUSAND pop cans lying around so that I can be part of "Today's newest threat to our freedom" and then flee leave the country?
/needs money for class trip to Japan

Leightonsatan

That's actually wrong.


/don't ask

Why is it wrong? And why should I not ask?

Jerry! We've lost the fat man, and we're running lean.

Perhaps if one had enough cans to return, they could afford to purchase a set of golf clubs used by JFK.

Lionel Mandrake: /just gettin' it out of the way...

Also came here for this.

/did not RTFA

Recycling is profitable now, what do you expect. Nothing worthwhile ever gets done without making someones wallet fatter.

Here's the move some of my local stores in New York pull.

They move the deposit machines from inside the store to outside, and that way it's too much of a pain in the arse to bring back the cans and bottles - too hot in the summer, too cold in the winter, and too wet when it's raining.

And exposing the machines to the elements means, gosh, they're out of order an awful lot.

I came here for one thing, and left satisfied with the Boobies.

Tui: I came here for one thing, and left satisfied with the Boobies.

Well, I guess boobies are good too.

jfarkinB: xCh: The concerns of the "state is losing money" are bogus - the redemption deposits are like rebates - probably only 60% ever gets redeemed.

FTFA:

Despite the problems, Michigan's recycling rate for cans and bottles is a successful 97 percent.

Reading comprehension FTW.

I'm willing to bet 97% of the people here in Michigan don't recycle the cans, though, that number is due to efforts by people like me, whenever I go fishing, I pick up all the cans, and when I am driving down a rural road with no real hurry, I'll stop my car and pick up cans I see along the way. Pays for at least some of the gas.

Stop charging the bottle deposit.. problem solved.

Or are we still pretending the real reason it exists is to promote recycling instead of the state banking all the money from the people who don't bother to return them?

hey fellow Michiganders, how's the weather holding up? We on a drive south for vacation this week.. missing out on the lake effect.

/not rubbing it in
//well maybe a little

On topic, my first job in High School was a gas station and we had people who came in with all sorts of cans. No electric bins or computers at the time and I never checked for state info. Who knows how much money they made off of us. If it was you, you're welcome.

noremorse: Slide show on youtube

Uhhh.. wrong thread?