Tuesday, October 1, 2013

A good explanation of Connecticut's bottle bill (and an illustration of its faults)

The Hartford Courant's consumer column addresses a problem with returning empties reported by one person (though this vexes many, many people):
"Yet, they do not — or are not required to? — accept the empty containers back and return the deposit to the customer."How is this allowed? We are forced to schlep the empty containers to a grocery store or liquor store, which accepts them. An example is Fiji water, which we love. There may be a great sale at CVS, but not every grocery store sells it, and I have to find one that will accept the empties back. Can you explain this phenomenon?"
 The Bottom Line, Sept. 30, 2013

People have been complaining about this for years, and our experience shows people prefer the ease and convenience of curbside recycling over the hassle of schlep[ping] the empties to the individual stores that sell them. This photograph, taken at CRRA's recycling processing center in Hartford, bears that out.


This is a bale of aluminum cans and foil ready to be shipped from our processing center. Highlighted are just a few of the deposit cans that people placed in their curbside recycling bins rather than "schlep the empty containers" whence they came -- even if it means losing their deposits.