Maine passes nations first law to make companies pay cost of recycling packaging | Hacker News Reader

Maine passes nations first law to make companies pay cost of recycling packaging

bostonglobe.com

45 pointsDocFeind7 comments

When a article about a Maine law starts off talking about Massachusetts business interests and lobbying groups it pegs my graft-o-meter.

It sounds like a good law on face value and it seems like something pretty common worldwide but the devil is always in the details with these sorts of things.

Now I'm left wondering what masshole slimeball bought that law with the intention of profiting off of it and whether it's actually a good law or just tuned to be a profitable one for somebody.

I just came from a Maine vacation. Trying to return bottles to a grocery store were I bought them and get the deposit back proved impossible.

You would have to register with a company named clynk. (I think you need their mobile app as well.) They provide an initial free batch of bags which you fill with you bottles, then drop off in a designated container and eventually the money will be credited to your clynk account. Once you have used up your bags you have to buy new ones.

To be honest, their system doesnt sound bad for residents - being able to drop off a bag of recyclables at a retailer with a personalized bar code and get paid sounds nice. In California where I live, technically most retailers that sell containers are obligated to take them back and refund you (Grocery Stores, Liquor Stores, Gas Station mini-marts, etc). In practice, I've never seen anyone do this. You have to go to a special recycling center location to get paid (most places do have curbside recycling you dont get refunded for, though).

There are many redemption centers around Maine other than clynk, that don't charge a fee and pay cash.

Good to know, but my memory of Maine is that these places look like trucking exchanges points that few tourists will investigate and I don't see the ethics in having easy retail that isn't also responsible for equally convenient recycling.

At least in California the idea seems to be that someone will find and return all the bottles for the deposit money, even if it's not the original customer. Even if you throw a bottle in the trash, someone will probably dig it out.

This would be vastly better as a federal law than a large number of different state approaches.

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