* One narrative is that the high bottle recycling rate shows a problem with the social safety net.
* Another narrative is that recycling rate shows that it is itself functioning as part of the solution to the social safety net.
Sort of like how a high rate of airbag use could make a statement about how safe or unsafe driving is.
I don't know which of these narratives is closer to the truth, but I think it's good example to use to help train ourselves to realize that many narratives are possible and part of critical thinking is not jumping too quickly from raw data to any one particular interpretation.
In my experience, no one in good faith argues that bottle deposits are a part of the social safety net, let alone a functional part.
Edit: to clarify, mine is a US centric experience. I think the argument for recycling collection as a tool of economic mobility is perfectly sound as long as it's not economically coercive (i.e. if the safety net is adequate without resorting to roaming the streets collecting recyclable material).
Unfortunately it puts the collectors at risk, because it incentivizes them to root through garbage cans full of potentially dangerous material without any protective equipment. And in the end its a complete waste of their time. If the government wants to earmark that money for them, they should just do that, and let those people do something meaningful like job training, or raising grandchildren, or whatever, instead of being up to their elbows in broken glass and used condoms in the middle of the night. Most of the recyclable material was already in somebody's recycling bin already, so it's not like they're cleaning up the environment or any other social good.
Another effect is it lowers your garbage/recycling bill as homeless will often rummage through your bins for cans/bottles freeing up bin space so you never really have an overflow problem of glass or cans.