Do YOU Recycle?
Oregon’s bottle bill was brought up in the comments on an earlier post - and it got me wondering - do you return your own cans and bottles for your nickel? Or do you put them out in your curbside pick-up/for folks scavenging? Or do you (be careful - people my come after you!) just throw them away?
I moved here from another state that also has a 5c refund - so my entire adult life I’ve collected soda and beer cans to take back. It’s just one of those things you do. I have on occasion been in my driveway when someone on a bike or with a cart is out collecting and I’ve gladly passed over a post-party giant trash bag full - and watched their eyes just light up. But usually we make a trip to the closest grocery store and collect our $5 or $6. If there are unique brands or torn labels that don’t work the first try - we just leave them there for someone else who’s willing to make more of an effort.
I have several friends though who were shocked when they learned that we did actually return our recyclables. They always just put theirs out in the curbside bins - and don’t live in a neighborhood where they get much scavenging - so most of the time they just get picked up by the trucks.
Other friends who are in a scavenger friendly neighborhood have said they leave theirs out on trash/recycling day - but in separate bag so that it’s easy for someone to just swing by and grab it - and they do on a regular route down the street.
So everyone that I’ve ever had a discussion about it with does recycle their bottles and cans in some way or another - but I hadn’t ever heard anyone say they thought that the returning for cash was a bad idea until today.
So what do you do with your returnables?
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I seperate the 5 cent bottle and cans and put them in a bag for someone to take. I spent a weekend in Miami recently and stayed with family and friends. Three of the four households that I visited had absolutely no recycling at their home. Everything goes in the trash. It’s disgusting.
Mine go to the curb and are rummaged. It’s way too much of a nasty hassle to gather them up and deal with them at the grocery store. Hey, if I can help somebody buy their Friday 40! When this bill goes through, then they can get cigarettes to go with it!
We just put our empties out with the rest of the recycling. People usually take them well before the trucks come, though, which is just fine by me. The problem is that storing and returning the bottles just takes to much space/time to be feasible. I used to try, but this led to more bottle hoarding than returning.
I go back and forth on the bottle deposit issue. On one hand, it wouldn’t change what I already do - put beer bottles in the recycling next to the wine bottles. But, on the other hand I don’t know if everyone in the state has easy access to recycling, so in that case the deposit is effective - and should even be expanded to cover other glass bottles.
Oh, and as a parting shot - I loved the ads against the bottle bill so many years ago that contended adding juice bottles &c. would be confusing. As if it’s not confusingly arbitrary as it is. Why carbonated drinks and not glass bottles period? We’re interested in recycling glass, not the few molecules of soda or beer that still adhere to the inside of the bottles.
Back in the day my roommate and I used to save up all our bottles and cans in the closet or on the back patio and before we had a party we would load them all up into my boyfriend’s truck and then swing around to other friend’s places and pick up all of their bottles and cans. We would spend half the day returning that huge bulk of bottles and cans and we would use that money to buy beer and whatnot for a party.
Now we just put them out for recycling at the curb…
We take our returnable bottles to our local New Seasons and put them in the bin that designates the refund to go to Portland Public Schools.
Hilsy - that’s cool - I wasn’t aware of that. Do you know if they have a bin for that at all the New Seasons?
my wife takes them to get our 5 cents back.
You guys are just throwing money away!
BTW, she picks up pennies from the side walk. :)
They’re too much hassle to take to the store, especially since I’d be taking them on bike. A few bucks is really not worth all that hassle for me. The only thing I regret is that the bums can’t get to them because our bins are inside a secure garage.
divebarwife- They do at seven corners. I used to do that when I lived closer to New Seasons.
We recycle and don’t take them to the store. I tried once awhile back and got $2.10. Not worth it for a bag of stinky beer bottles and the stuff that got on my clothes. Yeah, it is a sort of tax, but one I deal with. I actually wish the bottle bill covered more items.
Is a bottle or can returned to New Seasons or Freddies any more (or less) likely to to actually get reused/reprocessed than a bottle or can picked up from my curbside bin by the garbage hauler? Or does it all go to the same place?
The deposit hasn’t kept up with inflation; I think if the deposit was raised to 10-25 cents more people would recycle.
When I was a kid (late 70s) brown beer bottles were only worth 2 cents, cans were 5, but 16oz glass bottles were 10 and quart bottles were 20! Then those dastardly 2 liter bottles were introduced and now we’re all fat on cheap pop and it’s not worth the trouble to bring them in for the deposit.
Ed - I believe the end up in basically the same place. I just kinda wondered if we were the last people who weren’t homeless or in college who still took them in. :)
I would also be curious what happens to the ones from bars and restaurants. Do they recycle?
Divebarwife,
We also shop at the Seven Corners New Seasons, so I can only vouch for that location. I checked their website but found nothing about the bottle return policy.
I like it because I know where the money is going and it is relatively convenient because you don’t have to wait around and have the bottles counted or stuff the bottles into a machine. I can see where it is not really an option if you are shopping by bike.
Divebar- You are not alone. I too take them back. The local Winco has a lot of machines, and they seem to take most everything, whereas Fred Meyer and others seem to only accept them if they were bought there. I enjoy the few bucks I get to hog all to myself and no one else in the family knows!
Yeah, I’m a cheapie…
I usually take them in, but I’ve been wondering “why bother” lately. The couple of bucks I recover isn’t worth the hassle. I had a bunch of beer bottles that I bought at Rite-Aid, and neither the Winco or Safeway machines would accept them. They went into the curbside bin.
The New Seasons on N. Interstate has a bin designated for Portland Public Schools. Although we have very few returnable bottles or cans in our household we always take them back, we never get much more than $2 but that is like having a $2 off coupon for our groceries. I am not in favor of just leaving the returnables on the curb. On recycle eve that brings a steady stream of strangers through our neighborhood, rummaging through people’s recycling; we have even had people come to the door and ask for our returnables!
The Portland Public Schools donation thing is an excellent idea. Never thought of that. I wish there was a New Seasons nearby—they have a great selection of local foods. I have Wild Oats nearby, which is not that great. As far as I can tell, they don’t even recycle the corn plastic containers they use in their deli. I believe they just throw them in the dumpster.
As for bottles, I used to just throw them in the bin, but I’ve been taking them to Freddy’s lately. I need the money, but it’s not even really worth it. Lots of bother for very little return. Five cents might have been a lot 30 years ago, but not now. I sometimes give bottles to the cleaner looking collectors, but we already have so many of them come through my neighborhood, I don’t want to encourage them too much.
ahem…as I’ve mentioned before, scavengers suck. If they didn’t throw trash around, then perhaps I wouldn’t care so much.
I am not a religious recycler but I think that I make every effort to do so. I am not much for returning cans and bottles but I do collect them for my younger family members who use the money for school trips and events.
Only in Portland would this post get so many comments.
Like a lot of people here I never knew about the PPS option at New Seasons. That sounds like the perfect solution as they also take the margarine/yogurt containers that otherwise end up in landfills. Right now I do take my bottles back, usually to QFC as they have the least smelly recycling area. It’s more habit than logic.
According to my local garbage man, since the payment for glass is so low, when the recycled glass hits the transfer station it currently goes to the landfill rather than actually being recycled.
Growing up in Michigan and having a deposit return of $.10, we always recycled. Returning 50 cans/bottles for $5.00 just semmed more “worth it” than 100 bottles for the same amount. Now, living in the inner NE, I just put my cans/bottles by the recycling bin and my friendly neighborhood can collector takes them.
When you buy by the case (Costco), it adds up. I get my refunds.
“According to my local garbage man, since the payment for glass is so low, when the recycled glass hits the transfer station it currently goes to the landfill rather than actually being recycled.”
I hope that’s not true. Anyone else have any knowledge about this?