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Comment by ThompJackie | Hacker News Reader

I was wondering if they can apply the same concept to recyclable materials? Charge around 50 cents for each bottle extra, but then get refunded 50 cents when you recycle the bottle so it causes the customer to recycle more and if not, someone else will pick up the bottle themselves

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In Canada some provinces use this method. To the best of my knowledge the ones who have the best results is New-Brunswick which charges a fee for every item from this list : soft drinks, beer, wine, spirits, water and flavoured waters, fruit and vegetable juices, low alcohol drinks. The fee is 10 cents for everything except for alcoholic beverage over 500ml which have a fee of 20 cents. When you bring it back they give you half of that back. The bottles are processed by hand, giving job opportunities to many people. In 2010-2011, the program achieved a 79% recovery rate.

Here is some more info on the program : http://www.ec.gc.ca/gdd-mw/default.asp?lang=En&xml=0822FE9A-...

In the province in which I live in (Quebec), the fees are the same but they give you back the whole fee. This means that the program costs more so to stay profitable the bottles are not hand processed. This means that there is less jobs created as a whole. However, since you receive twice as much when you collect bottles many people under the poverty line attend big events in hope to collect the bottles left behind by those who don't care. I've met a guy who was riding his bike with a small trailer who was making up to 400$ a day picking up bottles ! It obviously does not happen every day but it gives you an idea. Sometimes I drink in the park with my friends and some guy will come up to us and ask which bottles we are done with and he'd take care of them for us.

I've heard that in Denmark they actually have an over 100% recovery rate because of bottles and cans coming in from other countries. If I remember right they charge $1 for deposit.

$0.17, $0.25 or $0.50 depending on can/bottle size. If prizes were much higher I think people would get into fights over empty cans in parks and at festivals. After all it's basically "collect three empty beers, get one for free".

In Demark? Even the weak as piss beer is expensive.

Most states in the USA do exactly this already.

From the sound of it, Michigan does it very well with their 10 cent deposit, and allowing most people to claim their deposit back right at the grocery store. California (with 5 cent CRV) is miserable with the places where we are supposed to claim our deposits being overrun with homeless and the places themselves not being all that great (I'm speaking from my experience in Orange County, YMMV).

Less than a dozen states, nowhere near most.

Only 11 states.[1] (That's more than I thought.)

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container_deposit_legislation_i...

In California, the deposit on milk bottles is 1.50, and you get the deposit back when you bring the bottles back to the store. I associate bottled milk as having premium quality, even though the total price after redemption is similar to wax carton milk.

CA also has CRV (Container recycle value, basically, .5/.10 ea), but it isn't a straight redemption value. You can turn in up to 50 containers of each type for a CRV refund, but after 50 you only get the CRV returned by weight.

Some counties in CA have a plastic bag ban, with paper bags for .10 and compostable plastic bags for .25. You can get reusable bags for as little as $2 at the register too.

CRV: http://www.calrecycle.ca.gov/BevContainer/Recyclers/Director...

Bag ban: http://sfenvironment.org/article/prevent-waste/checkout-bag-...

Clarification: CRV can refer to

"California Refund Value" - the amount recycling centers pay to consumers in exchange for empty bottles and cans, or

"California Redemption Value" - a deposit paid on sales of certain recyclable beverage containers.

I was just thinking about bottle deposits the other day. In places where they offer a bottle deposit and a refund when you return it do they consider those bottles your purchased property, or in those places do you just buy the drink and lease the bottle until it's returned?

Is there an expectation of returning bottles in places that offer a refund, and does it affect your legal entitlement to the bottle in any way?

The former in Michigan, where I was raised. $0.10/bottle, and seen as property (socially).

In the city where I live, bottles are property of the customer, but there is a formal pledge of having it refunded in case it's returned.

I really dislike this idea. Living in an apartment means I put my recycling in a communal receptacle which is then put out by the building. If you had this rule I might feel compelled to take the extra time to bring my recycling over the the store or what ever to get the refund. Overall I see that as inefficient and annoying.

It also tends to create a secondary economy, where people will go through your recyclables or pick through public recycling receptacles collecting containers and claiming the crv.

It makes the recycling trucks that go around sort of redundant.

recycling trucks have regardless much work to do, they certainly don't become redundant.

in real life, having people going around picking bottles is actually very convenient, as keeps the city cleaner.

Bottles pretty much never make it from our recycling bin to the truck. Every single morning there's people scavenging all the bins in the neighborhood in a systematic way. I don't mind, really, since it all ends up in the same place anyway.

It depends on how one has been educated.

A minimal fee (for example, 10c per bottle) is very advantageous, because people with higher salaries will just throw them not minding the minimal economic waste. People in the middle will return them while doing the grocery. Finally, poor people will hunt for them.

All of this, saves lots of garbage around.

That's how beer and glass water bottles are handled in Belgium.

It's been like this for at least 30 years, and it works fine.

In Portland, Oregon, the five cents a piece that we got from schlepping giant bags of empties to Freddy Meyer's enabled us to drink far longer than we could afford to.

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