When I moved to Maine I learned about their bottle and can deposit program. You pay an additional .05 on every bottle and can when you buy it, then get it back when you return it to a recycling center.

Not being a particularly "green" person myself it does seem to make sense to me. Instead of bottles and cans being tossed in landfills where they last basically forever, or worse tossed out as litter, they are pre-sorted and delivered to recyclers in big bags ready to be ground up.

Would you support such a plan?

When I moved to Maine I learned about their bottle and can deposit program. You pay an additional .05 on every bottle and can when you buy it, then get it back when you return it to a recycling center.

Not being a particularly "green" person myself it does seem to make sense to me. Instead of bottles and cans being tossed in landfills where they last basically forever, or worse tossed out as litter, they are pre-sorted and delivered to recyclers in big bags ready to be ground up.

Would you support such a plan?

When I lived in NY, they had that plan. It can work well, but can also be a pain in the butt. You have to clean all the bottles and store them prior to bringing them to a redemption center. In some cases, like plastic bottles, the redemption center is a crushing machine at the grocery store. You always get the person(s) who don't clean the bottles and it gets everywhere, stinks, and attracts bugs.

That said, yes, I would support it and use it. However, until they make recycling mandatory, I think very few would participate.

When I moved to Maine I learned about their bottle and can deposit program. You pay an additional .05 on every bottle and can when you buy it, then get it back when you return it to a recycling center.

Not being a particularly "green" person myself it does seem to make sense to me. Instead of bottles and cans being tossed in landfills where they last basically forever, or worse tossed out as litter, they are pre-sorted and delivered to recyclers in big bags ready to be ground up.

Would you support such a plan?

We did that when we lived in Ca. We would save up our cans for the month and then take them in to the recycle centers... it was nice to get that small hunk of money at the end of the month. They did it by weight and not each individual can so you just took the bags in and they weighed them and gave you your $$$ easy peasy japaneese!

When I lived in NY, they had that plan. It can work well, but can also be a pain in the butt. You have to clean all the bottles and store them prior to bringing them to a redemption center. In some cases, like plastic bottles, the redemption center is a crushing machine at the grocery store. You always get the person(s) who don't clean the bottles and it gets everywhere, stinks, and attracts bugs.

That said, yes, I would support it and use it. However, until they make recycling mandatory, I think very few would participate.

In Maine you didn't have to clean them. I had a can in the garage and collected all the cans and bottles. When I got 3 bags I took them to the redemption center and got my $18.50.

As far as participation while not mandatory it would be stupid not to. When you buy a 12 pack of beer, the beer rings up then it adds .60 on your recipt as "deposit". If you want your .60 back you collect the cans and take them to the redemption center. If you don't you just toss them out. In Maine it was the norm and the redemption centers were pretty busy. They were also contracted out and a private business which created jobs.

When I moved to Maine I learned about their bottle and can deposit program. You pay an additional .05 on every bottle and can when you buy it, then get it back when you return it to a recycling center.

Not being a particularly "green" person myself it does seem to make sense to me. Instead of bottles and cans being tossed in landfills where they last basically forever, or worse tossed out as litter, they are pre-sorted and delivered to recyclers in big bags ready to be ground up.

Would you support such a plan?

When I was a kid I would spend summer vacations down home in Virginia. They did this as well but there were no recycling centers. You simply took your bottles back to the store to get your .05 back.

Habitat for Humanity is actually collecting aluminum cans to help raise funds for the projects they have going on. My oldest rounds up a few kids in the neighborhood and off they go to collect all of the cans they can find. She then turns them into her school so they can turn them in to HFH.

When I was a kid I would spend summer vacations down home in Virginia. They did this as well but there were no recycling centers. You simply took your bottles back to the store to get your .05 back.

Those were the returnable heavy glass bottles they used back then. Now almost everything is throw away. I remember collecting bottles for bubble gum money back then :lol:

I used to collect cans along roadsides and take them to Eastalco. It was somethng like $0.60 a pound. I'd come home with some nice money for a kid.

Habitat for Humanity is actually collecting aluminum cans to help raise funds for the projects they have going on. My oldest rounds up a few kids in the neighborhood and off they go to collect all of the cans they can find. She then turns them into her school so they can turn them in to HFH.

That is cool but for every can they find probably a couple thousand make it into the landfill or tossed out in the weeds or on the side of the road. Just imagine how many sodas, beers, water, juice, energy drinks get consumed in ST Mary's county everyday, all going to the dump.

I used to collect cans along roadsides and take them to Eastalco. It was somethng like $0.60 a pound. I'd come home with some nice money for a kid.

You evidently didn't use that money for writing classes.

Those were the returnable heavy glass bottles they used back then. Now almost everything is throw away. I remember collecting bottles for bubble gum money back then :lol:

I think the same method could be used. Let the stores be the collection points. When the drink vendors drop off new supplies they can haul the empties back. Make the manufacturing folks a part of it.

That is cool but for every can they find probably a couple thousand make it into the landfill or tossed out in the weeds or on the side of the road. Just imagine how many sodas, beers, water, juice, energy drinks get consumed in ST Mary's county everyday, all going to the dump.


I can only imagine how many cans go in the garbage from bars where people mostly drink 10 oz'rs and all the red bull cans as well.

I think the same method could be used. Let the stores be the collection points. When the drink vendors drop off new supplies they can haul the empties back. Make the manufacturing folks a part of it.

Up there some did but for the most part handling a large quantity of empties might be overwhelming for them. I think it would be just as fine to allow free enterprise to come in and solve the problem. The redemption centers has semi loads of sorted plastic and aluminum cans taken from them every week.

I can only imagine how many cans go in the garbage from bars where people mostly drink 10 oz'rs and all the red bull cans as well.

Good point, the bar bottles if I am not mistaken are the thin glass non returnables. Jumbo can loads of them are dumped everyday.

Good point, the bar bottles if I am not mistaken are the thin glass non returnables. Jumbo can loads of them are dumped everyday.

I would have to check on the beer bottles, but I am pretty sure they can be recycled.

When I lived in VT I participated. I think it was a whopping $.10 though. :shrug: I guess if they made it mandatory I'd participate. I really don't recycle much.

I would have to check on the beer bottles, but I am pretty sure they can be recycled.

I am sure they can be recycled but they are not the heavy glass returnables they used to have.

I don't like it. I already have a recycling bin. With this program I would have to pay an extra 5¢ a bottle. Then I would have to take them somewhere to recoup my money?

It's already a pain trying to find somewhere to take my CFL's

When I lived in VT I participated. I think it was a whopping $.10 though. :shrug: I guess if they made it mandatory I'd participate. I really don't recycle much.

Several states do it. I think Michigan is .10 a bottle/can though which would be more of an incentive to encourage returning them.

Up there some did but for the most part handling a large quantity of empties might be overwhelming for them. I think it would be just as fine to allow free enterprise to come in and solve the problem. The redemption centers has semi loads of sorted plastic and aluminum cans taken from them every week.

True. I would just like to see redemption centers scattered around and have better access to them. As oopposed to 1-2 centralized points. Hence the reason for letting the stores be the collection points. Would be nice to be able to take a small load to the store on a regular basis as opposed to keeping everything around the house to be hauled as a dedicated load to a redemption center.

I remember doing the Aluminum Can thing in Virginia. They did not want you to crush them down there at that time. So this stuff has the potential to take up allot of space around the house. Would be nice to be able to easily haul it off and drop it off everytime I went for a gallon of Milk and knock it all out at one time.

In Virginia, The area I was from was rather remote. So for recyclables, I tractor traler would show up at various locations each week on scedualed basis. But the stores did the remption thingy.

I am sure they can be recycled but they are not the heavy glass returnables they used to have.


I think they are different. If you dropped one of those old coke bottles there was a good chance it was going to bounce around on the ground. If I drop my Coors Light bottle, It's history.

I am surprised at the results so far.

I think it would be just as fine to allow free enterprise to come in and solve the problem. The redemption centers has semi loads of sorted plastic and aluminum cans taken from them every week.

Don't you think if it was profitable that someone would be doing it already? You have to have a buyer to take it off the collectors hands. When you have no buyer it goes in a landfill.

Don't you think if it was profitable that someone would be doing it already? You have to have a buyer to take it off the collectors hands. When you have no buyer it goes in a landfill.

In Maine it is a mandatory state imposed deposit administered by them. Of course I am probably wrong but with the increasing cost of refuse collectiona nd disposal I would think the program would pay for itself or at least break even while creating a few jobs.

Don't you think if it was profitable that someone would be doing it already? You have to have a buyer to take it off the collectors hands. When you have no buyer it goes in a landfill.

:lmao: Your av....

In Maine it is a mandatory state imposed deposit administered by them. Of course I am probably wrong but with the increasing cost of refuse collectiona nd disposal I would think the program would pay for itself or at least break even while creating a few jobs.

Who needs another tax? Let the companies who use them absorb the cost and pass it on to the consumer. Then we can choose to buy or not.

:lmao: Your av....

:biggrin:

When I lived in NY, they had that plan. It can work well, but can also be a pain in the butt. You have to clean all the bottles and store them prior to bringing them to a redemption center. In some cases, like plastic bottles, the redemption center is a crushing machine at the grocery store. You always get the person(s) who don't clean the bottles and it gets everywhere, stinks, and attracts bugs.

That said, yes, I would support it and use it. However, until they make recycling mandatory, I think very few would participate.

Yep, it was like that when we lived in CT. I hated the sticky machines...ick!

Who needs another tax? Let the companies who use them absorb the cost and pass it on to the consumer. Then we can choose to buy or not.





You can choose to buy or not anyway. it is not exactly a "tax" unless you throw it in the trash. It is more of an incentive to lessen the tonnage of completely recyclable material going into landfills.

In Maine it is a mandatory state imposed deposit administered by them. Of course I am probably wrong but with the increasing cost of refuse collectiona nd disposal I would think the program would pay for itself or at least break even while creating a few jobs.

I don't know very much about recycling but I remember a couple years back when people were arguing that it wasn't financially feasible as an independent (non government subsidized) business. Has that changed for any of the major efforts? ie. aluminum, glass, paper, steel...

when i lived in ny they had a place you took the cans and bottles put them in a machine and it gave you a slip to take into the store and they either gave you your money or they took it off your grocerys at the end (whatever money you got in cans and bottles) and we weren't required to rinse them or any of that just bring them in and put them separated out so it didn't take so long to put them through as there was always a line when we went.

You can choose to buy or not anyway. it is not exactly a "tax" unless you throw it in the trash. It is more of an incentive to lessen the tonnage of completely recyclable material going into landfills.

Again, you have to have a buyer. No buyer...it goes in the landfill.

I don't know very much about recycling but I remember a couple years back when people were arguing that it wasn't financially feasible as an independent (non government subsidized) business. Has that changed for any of the major efforts? ie. aluminum, glass, paper, steel...

I am not sure, I recall watching an episode of "Penn and Teller's BULLSHIAT" and they said that recycling was not. Now that being said I would have to wonder why. It would seem to me that a large part of the cost of recycling is the labor/machinery needed to sort the material by class/type. the rest is just grinding and melting. If that is the case the deposit program would benefit because between the consumer and the collector everything would be pre-sorted removing that part of the expense.

In Mass they did it also. All the grocery stores had the machines that you could do it. You could also go to a redemption center and cash it in. I would collect cans from my dad's machine shop and get 15-20.00 for a little bit of work.

My church did that for a fundraiser collecting cans or bottles. I brought in 20 bags from my dad's machine shop. All the machinist's just put the cans and bottles in a bag for me.

Nobody really complained about it because it was just the way it was. I would be likely to keep my cans and bottles for redemption of Maryland did it.

We recycle all of our 10oz. and 12oz. cans. When we inquired about recycling bottles Waste Management told us we would have to seperate brown bottles, clear bottles and green bottles. No big problem with that? Then they wanted us to pay for 3 more dumpsters, but we wouldn't get anything from the recycling. Where's the incentive???

Again, you have to have a buyer. No buyer...it goes in the landfill.
Here is a list of recyclers.

Maryland Recycles (http://www.mdrecycles.org/recyclingDirectory.asp?sec=batteries)

I can only imagine how many cans go in the garbage from bars where people mostly drink 10 oz'rs and all the red bull cans as well.

We had a voluntary recycle program here at our office. It was well used, but the people responsible got tired of hauling the bags out. It eventually went away.

Most of my co-workers just throw out recycles, but I take them home and add them to my weekly recycle run to the transfer station.

I am not sure, I recall watching an episode of "Penn and Teller's BULLSHIAT" and they said that recycling was not. Now that being said I would have to wonder why. It would seem to me that a large part of the cost of recycling is the labor/machinery needed to sort the material by class/type. the rest is just grinding and melting. If that is the case the deposit program would benefit because between the consumer and the collector everything would be pre-sorted removing that part of the expense.

That's why the recycle at the transfer station is a joke. It used to be separated into paper and glass/metal. Now it's a combined bin for anything. People just use it to toss their trash in now and I'm sure it doesn't get properly recycled.

That's why the recycle at the transfer station is a joke. It used to be separated into paper and glass/metal. Now it's a combined bin for anything. People just use it to toss their trash in now and I'm sure it doesn't get properly recycled.

They probably just dump it in the truck going to the landfill when no one is looking. :lol:

Here is a list of recyclers.

Maryland Recycles (http://www.mdrecycles.org/recyclingDirectory.asp?sec=batteries)

And...?

I am against it. I do not and will not recycle. So this would basically be an additional 5 cent tax on every can of beer I buy.

Article in the news couple months ago, Michigan or Wisconsin has a big problem with out of state bottles being turned in. Some counties are refunding more than were bought. A number of people have gone to jail for fraud.