California CRV recycling fraud

It might be a little farfetched. That adds up to 200 million cans at a nickel each pouring over the Arizona state line. That would be pretty hard to do.

I'm not aware of bottle fraud here in Maine. All of the states here in the Northeastern part of the U.S. have a bottle bill so someone would have to drive 500 miles to get that naughty nickel out of us.

Our bottle bill does have it's problems. Legally ... any store that sells you a beer & collects that five cent deposit is supposed redeem that bottle when you bring it back empty.

It's not a good idea to be bringing empty bottles & cans into a food store. They're dirty, filthy, grubby, nasty. (You don't $hit where you eat.)

The other problem is that the gal at the checkout might have a long line of customers with groceries waiting on her. She doesn't have time to count your bottles and put them away somewhere.

It was a poor solution, but they got the limit of 120 a day written into law. It still screws things up ... but not like if someone came in with a whole pickup truck of bottles & cans.

That's a good point. I never realized that NH doesn't have a bottle bill. I stand corrected good sir !

I dunno ... i took over the day to day operation of the local transfer station here last year. It's a challenging job but i like working with the townspeople and serving the community. Only got another five years or so left before retirement. It seems like a good way to finish up my adult working life. Not a bad job for an old guy.

Those ^&*$#@! bottles though ... they're a pain in the neck. There's nothing about the bottle redemption system that works particularly well.

Based on what i see everyday ... most of the people here don't want to be bothered trying to redeem them and get their nickel back. They just throw em' in the trash. There must be hundreds and maybe even thousands of bottles & cans going in the hopper every day.

This is where i think i would look for widespread fraud. Figure that the stores are collecting all these nickel deposits for bottles that never get redeemed. Where is all that unclaimed money going ?

Originally Posted by hills

I'm not aware of bottle fraud here in Maine. All of the states here in the Northeastern part of the U.S. have a bottle bill so someone would have to drive 500 miles to get that naughty nickel out of us.

Our bottle bill does have it's problems. Legally ... any store that sells you a beer & collects that five cent deposit is supposed redeem that bottle when you bring it back empty.

It's not a good idea to be bringing empty bottles & cans into a food store. They're dirty, filthy, grubby, nasty. (You don't $hit where you eat.)

The other problem is that the gal at the checkout might have a long line of customers with groceries waiting on her. She doesn't have time to count your bottles and put them away somewhere.

It was a poor solution, but they got the limit of 120 a day written into law. It still screws things up ... but not like if someone came in with a whole pickup truck of bottles & cans.

Hills,

As Copperminer pointed out, no bottle bill in NH. Rhode Island doesn't either. Vermont is on beer, malt, soda, mixed wine and licquor (15 cents on licquor). Mass is beer, malt, soda and mineral water. CT is beer, malt, soda and water (including water with sugar added), NY is beer, malt, soda and water (no sugar added).

https://www.ncsl.org/environment-and...r-deposit-laws

I'm sure there are containers coming into other states from NH and RI. I know there are water bottles going from Mass into CT and NY and have heard of liquor bottles going into VT from Mass and NY and probably NH.

Even with the laws (120 per day in Maine, over 2500 per day in NY and they take a license plate number, etc.) there are still thousands of fraudent returns per day.

Originally Posted by hills

That's a good point. I never realized that NH doesn't have a bottle bill. I stand corrected good sir !

I dunno ... i took over the day to day operation of the local transfer station here last year. It's a challenging job but i like working with the townspeople and serving the community. Only got another five years or so left before retirement. It seems like a good way to finish up my adult working life. Not a bad job for an old guy.

Those ^&*$#@! bottles though ... they're a pain in the neck. There's nothing about the bottle redemption system that works particularly well.

Based on what i see everyday ... most of the people here don't want to be bothered trying to redeem them and get their nickel back. They just throw em' in the trash. There must be hundreds and maybe even thousands of bottles & cans going in the hopper every day.

This is where i think i would look for widespread fraud. Figure that the stores are collecting all these nickel deposits for bottles that never get redeemed. Where is all that unclaimed money going ?

To the guys bringing them in fraudently!

Originally Posted by mthomasdev

Hills,

As Copperminer pointed out, no bottle bill in NH. Rhode Island doesn't either. Vermont is on beer, malt, soda, mixed wine and licquor (15 cents on licquor). Mass is beer, malt, soda and mineral water. CT is beer, malt, soda and water (including water with sugar added), NY is beer, malt, soda and water (no sugar added).

https://www.ncsl.org/environment-and...r-deposit-laws

I'm sure there are containers coming into other states from NH and RI. I know there are water bottles going from Mass into CT and NY and have heard of liquor bottles going into VT from Mass and NY and probably NH.

Even with the laws (120 per day in Maine, over 2500 per day in NY and they take a license plate number, etc.) there are still thousands of fraudent returns per day.

I dunno ... maybe it's because i'm off in my own little world here. It seems like it would awfully hard to do on any scale. There are physical barriers to doing any large amount of bottles at one time. I'll try to explain.

There are two bottle redemption places within a 15 mile radius of me.

The first: (I used to work there.) It's primarily Tomra reverse vending machines. You feed them in ... one ... bottle ... at ...a ...time. A friend of mine brought in 4 pickup truck loads in the course of a day. It took him six hours of feeding the machines to process that many. His net was about $ 130.00 for the day's work.

The second redemption place is all hand counts. We literally collected a whole building full of bottles last year. Had a devil of a time to get the second redemption place to eventually accept them all. Net for the entire year was only $ 4,000.00.

It's a similar story with the other charities that accept bottle donations in this area. Literal barn fulls that are uncommonly difficult to move. They are just sitting there.

You would really have to scale up to moving eighteen wheeler loads across state lines ... and feed them in at the very top of the bottle redemption chain to commit fraud on any scale. You would probably spend more on gas to move a pickup truck load of water bottles from Mass to CT.

I'm not saying it couldn't be done in theory. Just saying that actually doing it doesn't seem feasible. The juice isn't worth the squeeze.

Originally Posted by hills

I dunno ... maybe it's because i'm off in my own little world here. It seems like it would awfully hard to do on any scale. There are physical barriers to doing any large amount of bottles at one time. I'll try to explain.

There are two bottle redemption places within a 15 mile radius of me.

The first: (I used to work there.) It's primarily Tomra reverse vending machines. You feed them in ... one ... bottle ... at ...a ...time. A friend of mine brought in 4 pickup truck loads in the course of a day. It took him six hours of feeding the machines to process that many. His net was about $ 130.00 for the day's work.

The second redemption place is all hand counts. We literally collected a whole building full of bottles last year. Had a devil of a time to get the second redemption place to eventually accept them all. Net for the entire year was only $ 4,000.00.

It's a similar story with the other charities that accept bottle donations in this area. Literal barn fulls that are uncommonly difficult to move. They are just sitting there.

You would really have to scale up to moving eighteen wheeler loads across state lines ... and feed them in at the very top of the bottle redemption chain to commit fraud on any scale. You would probably spend more on gas to move a pickup truck load of water bottles from Mass to CT.

I'm not saying it couldn't be done in theory. Just saying that actually doing it doesn't seem feasible. The juice isn't worth the squeeze.

I live about 5 miles from the NY border. There are stores within 10 miles that you could return bottles and cans. There are 3 redemption centers within 32 miles that actually pay 6 cents verse 5 cents. There used to be vans going thru our neighborhood on the weeks that bottles and cans were put out for recycling. You can probably fit over 2500 on a full size pick up truck. That's $150 each trip. You can walk into these redemption centers and they ask you how many you have. As long as you know, they pay you on the spot. I've only heard of one instance where the owner questioned someone. There was someone down the road from me that was collecting at the place they work and returning the bottles to donate money to charity.