Even with this, not enough people bother.
The real solution is to make our garbage collection far more efficient. Why do we still separate recyclables and garbage into separate bins? As-if regular people can be trusted to do this without fail? Make it automatic, and a lot of this concern will go away.
If each bottle was $0.50, many more people would separate and sort their recycling to take advantage of this.
Would probably have some free beneficial side effects, like less soda consumption and more use of re-usable water bottles.
Increasing CRV disproportionately impacts people with less economic stability than others. Many of us here on HN probably wouldn't miss $0.50, at least enough to be compelled to take the time to properly sort our garbage 100% of the time.
Plastic floats, glass and metal sinks. Shred everything and separate it. Machines already exist like this - but everyone wants to focus on compelling human behavior to be a certain way instead of just removing that hurdle completely, which would be better for everyone involved.
Not to mention all the lazy people who don't bother to sort anything still get the right thing done.
There isn't much cost to the above: I'm not perfect so they need to re-sort my recyclables anyway (this is why I only have two bins, one for non-recyclables, one for recyclables instead of a dozen for each type). The real trick is to make the machines cheap and reliable enough to handle any input. I think the main reason they don't do this already is the machines jam if you feed them plastic bags.
Only having a single bin to worry about - all garbage goes into it - would be a huge win for the environment. It's one of the few areas I'd actually be OK with significant government subsidies to help companies/municipalities acquire the equipment.
The article states clearly it's other nations dumping or losing US garbage, that they purchased with intent to do something with, that is the main culprit. That and fishing and shipping equipment that is thrown or lost overboard.
I'm actually unsure what these recycling centers do with the collected bottles. Maybe they sell the material to companies that will recycle it into new objects, or at least dispose of it in designated areas where it will not impact the environment. Either way, it's the "designated, government sanctioned" way to recycle these bottles. Tossing them into your recycle bin doesn't redeem the CRV for the individual.
Recycling centers are common if you know where to look - the ugly side of town is an ideal place for them (both because they are by nature messy, and because competition means they can't afford are more expensive area). Many small towns have a place to recycle (most small town industry has enough metal waste to make it worth recycling, so there is demand)
Though in Iowa the way the redemption works is any store that sells it must take it back. I don't know how redemption centers work, because we don't have them, instead every supermarket takes their cans back. This ends up being a war on generic soda: coke/pepsi you can take anywhere, but stores will reject the other-store brand cans making them a hassle to sort.
If we can automatically recycle most/all of them, single-use becomes a non-issue. You get to have your plastic straws and bags without producing waste material.
Which is why it's better to not rely on people's behavior for recycling programs. It should be automatic. Place whatever in a bin, and the garbage company sorts and recycles.
2. a tax on all bottles doesn't incentivize using a different material for bottles
3. if the tax is ineffective, it isn't large enough
4. recycling plastic is expensive - better to just not use plastic in the first place
A tax on plastic (not glass or tin) would incentivize making bottles out of glass or tin instead.
We could figure out some plastic waste scheme that works like carbon credits, and that might lead to better outcomes. You could get credits for turning waste PET into insulation or fabric, and have to buy said credits to produce bottles. Though this is sort of off the top of my head and half baked.
This is kind of a side show though in my opinion the overwhelming majority of plastic in the ocean is fishing relater (e.g. abandoned nets) and shipping material that blows off of cargo vessels.
Better monitoring and policing of fishing in international waters could kill a lot of birds with 1 stone.
(And the intent of my proposal is to render the use of plastics unlike PET uneconomical. That's the point of the proposal, not the problem with it.)
I think the issue is that plastic is useful for reasons other that just the material cost. Shipping glass is both dangerous and VERY energy intensive. Treated paper doesn't hold pressure, and is easily damaged. There are a lot of other reasons why plastic is suitable for packaging that I won't enumerate at length here, but I think it's reasonable to say that there are legitimate uses.
I will wholeheartedly agree that plastic packaging is over used. That said, fishing and marine waste are still the single largest source of ocean plastic.
That it's cheap to bury our trash in the perfect, well-maintained landfill is a tiny consolation.