In California we have a recycling tax. Well, actually, if you ask a legislator, it's not really a tax. It's kind of like a loan. A 5 cent loan.
If you want to buy a recyclable object, usually a beverage such as a 16oz bottle of soda, you will pay for the soda, and you will pay 5 cents to the state of California. But it's not a soda tax! Because all you have to do to get it back is go to a state-run recycling facility and get your nickel back! Definitely not a tax. Just a fee you pay to the government.
Needless to say, it had exactly the desired effect. People who didn't recycle continued not recycling, and the state got to keep all those sweet nickels.
Except now that we're in hard times, more people have taken to recycling.
Bad news.
California legislators have been raiding the fund for years.
Hey, if it wasn't a tax, why were you guys spending it like was tax dollars? Maybe it was because it really WAS a tax that you wanted to claim was not a tax?
Nahhhhh...
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I never could figure out how to get my money back from the bastards, so my bottles always wound up in the trash (right next to the CRT and florescent tubes I broke in half to make them fit)...
Michigan's system makes much more sense. The deposit is really a deposit, and is a flat $.10/container on soft drinks and things like beer. And to redeem it, you just take it to anyplace that sells whatever brand of drink you have containers for.
now some of the stores in Michigan have a vending machine that you feed cans to, and it sorts out any that are non- mi-returns and you can either take them back, or dump them in a recycle bin next to the machine.
When I was growing up in Michigan, the cans on the side of the road bought gas and a Vernors for me.
My old CT70 could go 150 miles on a tank, and it only held a bit under a gallon.
JP, Meijer's has had those kind of machines for a looooong time now (I'm thinking at least 10 years, because I've been gone from Michigan for almost that long). They would read the bar code and if it was plastic or a can, crush the container.
I know what you mean about the cans you found. It was always awesome whenever someone was a slob, because you could clean it up and make some quick dough!
What part of Michigan do you come from? I'm from Belding, which is east of Grand Rapids a little ways.
Hey Mike, I'm a Yooper.
I'm originally from Gladstone.
I was gone from there in 84 right after graduation from Highschool. (Reaganomics was slow to reach our backwoods, and Lansing has always done it's best to kill the economy anyhow). Super Value has one of those machines in my hometown. It wasn't until recently I even went into there, so I can't say how long they had it.
I just returned from my local CA recycling center. I was sent home with half the plastic bottles I had taken because their labels had been removed. The recycler said it was a new law because CA did want to return money if I could not prove that I had bought the bottle in CA. What a rip-off! Doesn't give much incentive to pick up discarded bottles along the roadside if I can't get money for them.
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