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My parents collect cans for a living

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Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#291

Post by ratww »

MandieD wrote: post #237
faeyanpiraat wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do the bottles need to be full size, or do they accept crushed ones?

The lightweight plastic ones are "Einweg" ("single use"), and the deposit is to get the material back for recycling - as long as the deposit label will scan, it's accepted. It's easier to scan them in the automats if they're not crushed; my German husband does not seem to have fully internalized this, so I reinflate them when they get rejected. Glass bottles (beer, juice, milk and yoghurt) are "Mehrweg" ("multi-use")…

> Glass bottles (beer, juice, milk and yoghurt) are "Mehrweg" ("multi-use")

There is also a special case of a Mehrweg 1L plastic bottle, used mostly by Coca Cola. It is also sterilised before reuse.

> preferably with metal lid in the case of the milk and joghurt bottles

Ooops, I didn't know that. Thank you.

Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#292

Post by cyberpunk »

berkes wrote: post #135
oaiey wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Weird side-effect: homeless people might ask for your empty bottle and do the collection. Not sure how I feel about that though… It becomes a respectful cooperation. When you party in a park, you place your containers next to a trash so a homeless can pick it up without searching the trash. They basically help you partying hard (and not caring/carrying about the bottles) and earn (by hard work) a bit of money.

In Germany -at least the cities I'm familiar with- everyone places their cans and bottles next to the trash-can. German bottles often have "pfand gehört daneben" (Deposits belong next to it) printed on them[0]. And some cities even placed special holders alongside the trashcans[1]. Like with many things, Germans have made deposit collection into an efficient job. [0] https://kaiserkiwi.de/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/f…

Yeh until the machines reject your four crates of beer for no reason and you’re in that limbo of “do I care about €10 enough to lug these to another edeka or not” ;)

Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#293

Post by selimthegrim »

gs17 wrote: post #9
jandrewrogers wrote: post #4

I have not thought about collecting cans in a very long time. Decades ago you could make a decent bit of cash collecting aluminum cans. It was a common past time for poor people and undoubtedly contributed to the very high recycle rate for aluminum since it was a source of income for many people. This was widely known, so people would often go out of their way to make their aluminum trash easily available to be colle…

It's still sort of common in places with deposits on cans. In Michigan, I had a few friends growing up who did it to help their families. They got in trouble with the school on multiple occasions for digging them out of the trash, and what the school said implied it was that the school was profiting off the cans themselves. The episode of Seinfeld where they try to bring bottles to Michigan for the deposit always giv…

I lived in Ohio and I had friends drive their van full of bottles and cans up to Michigan all the time

Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#294

Post by ratww »

faeyanpiraat wrote: post #271
biztos wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For plastic bottles at least for the machine you would have to un-crush it, it scans the bottle. For beer bottles, I dunno, try it out and report back?

It would be quite a long trip for me to try it.

How do you crush a beer bottle? They're always glass, no?

Or do you mean the beer can? In this case they can't be crushed, because the barcode has to be readable!

A friend tried hehe. If they're not too damaged you can put them back into shape, the machine is quite robust.

Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#295

Post by KineticLensman »

orangepurple wrote: post #229
carlmr wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only issue is that glass bottles are too cheap and heavy. They should at least have a 25 cent deposit as well. Right now no homeless person picks those up, because it's just not worth it. Even with 25 cents there would still be a disincentive due to the weight, but I also don't want to incentivize bottle makers to produce more plastic, for them to lower the price at the counter.

I don't understand the point of recycling glass. Most glass is mostly sand, an abundant raw material.

> Most glass is mostly sand, an abundant raw material.

Sand is not actually an abundant raw material [0]. Although sand in general is abundant, sand that is usable for construction and manufacturing is generally found on beaches and flood-plains - desert sand is less angular and usable. We extract 50 billion tonnes of sand per year and this is getting worse as a result of continued massive urbanisation. Ocean dredging for sand has significant ecological input.

This might not be why glass recycling started, but it suggests an incentive for continuing to do so.

[0] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191108-why-the-world-is...

Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#296

Post by gkop »

rootusrootus wrote: post #217
rladd wrote: post #53

This is why I have always thought that can and bottle deposit prices should keep up with inflation: to give the collectors a living wage.

I think Oregon has the right idea. We did invent the bottle bill, so I guess that isn't a complete surprise. The redemption value is tied not to inflation, but to redemption rate. If it drops low enough, the deposit is increased. We started at 5 cents, and in 2015 the redemption rate had slipped down to 65%, so the deposit was doubled to 10 cents.

Ok so we raise money to rent giant warehouses, hit the streets and buy up all the bottles for 10 cents, and then just warehouse them. Redemption rate slips, deposit increases -> profit.

Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#297

Post by ratww »

gnopgnip wrote: post #112
EE84M3i wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Here all shops that sell such goods are required to accept the containers in return How does this work for convenience stores or other non-supermarkets that incidentally sell drinks in cans/bottles? They have to have a machine?

In MI it is the same, small stores manually do it. You hand them a box with 12 cans in it and they credit you $1.20

Michigan's 10 cent rate is part of the plot of the legendary Seinfeld episode "The Bottle Deposit".

In this episode Kramer and Newman scheme a plan to deliver bottles from New York (where deposit was only 5c) to Michigan to cash in.

Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#298

Post by Ensorceled »

poo-yie wrote: post #270
moron4hire wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's strictly because you can't get the color back out of the glass. They want to make new, clear bottles, instead of just accepting that we could all live with just brown bottles.

That was my guess. However, couldn't they make new brown bottles out of old brown bottles? Maybe not big enough incentive to sort by specific colors.

Yep. Most bottles are clear and that's what the system is set up to recycle.

We still recycle green and brown glass ... it's just less efficient and productive. I'm pretty sure it's a cost to the system as well.

Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#299

Post by Ensorceled »

moron4hire wrote: post #263
poo-yie wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the significance of the glass being clear? I'm guessing this means that green or brown glass is not recyclable. Why is that?

It's strictly because you can't get the color back out of the glass. They want to make new, clear bottles, instead of just accepting that we could all live with just brown bottles.

Well, brown bottles also make it difficult to see if, for instance, those pickles have "passed". Both at the store level and for the consumer.

Re: My parents collect cans for a living

#300

Post by wreckdropibex »

orangepurple wrote: post #229
carlmr wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only issue is that glass bottles are too cheap and heavy. They should at least have a 25 cent deposit as well. Right now no homeless person picks those up, because it's just not worth it. Even with 25 cents there would still be a disincentive due to the weight, but I also don't want to incentivize bottle makers to produce more plastic, for them to lower the price at the counter.

I don't understand the point of recycling glass. Most glass is mostly sand, an abundant raw material.

You would imagine sand was abundant, but: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191108-why-the-world-is...

Also, glass can be recycled near infinitely and 1 ton of glass created from recycled glass requires 30% less energy than from raw materials: https://www.palpa.fi/juomapakkausten-kierratys/eri-juomapakk...

Also, in another world:

- 87% of recyclable glass bottles are recycled https://www.palpa.fi/juomapakkausten-kierratys/eri-juomapakk...

- 97% of reusable glass bottles are returned for reuse https://www.palpa.fi/juomapakkausten-kierratys/eri-juomapakk...

- Reusable glass bottles are reused on AVERAGE 33 times https://www.ekopullo.fi/fi/

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