The sad truth; our gas should be this expensive or higher. In order for most americans, often driving alone in a big polluting, gas guzzling pick-up or SUV, this will be the only reason they make a change. What climate change?
How many bottles/cans do you return at one time? Volume is everything. I put my empties in a large plastic tub. When the tub is full, I dump it into a large trash bag and take it with me on my next trip to the grocery store. Run them through the machine...get $7-$8 per load. Rarely more than 1-2 people ahead of me waiting for the machines...frequently none. Make a special trip or bring only a few at a time and of course your $ return rate will be low.
Where I live we only get money back on booze & beer container All the rest are pick up once a week with newpaper etc
It's a long, long trip, poetically that is, haiku to limerick. Waiting for cheap gas. Coffee still warm in my cup, My thoughts flew for miles.
I take several bags at a time. I'm not counting travel time to and from the store, as I have to go shopping anyway. My point is that at 10 cents apiece, feeding cans into a machine one at a time returns less money than my billable rate, even if I don't have to wait in line and I feed the machines as fast as they take them. I try to separate my personal life from making money, but when you own the company it's sometimes hard to do. If I start thinking about time as money, almost everything I do is not cost effective. It's not a health attitude, so I try to avoid it. Tom
More than once somebody saw my "Republicans for Voldemort" bumper sticker and say "I just thought liberals lived in Western Massachusetts!" Personally, I consider that a bonus.
I go to the recycling center once or twice a year. I stuff the car, make the trip, dump everything into its bin. Feeding cans into a machine one at a time to get a penny apiece, is not worth it. I don't need the few bucks. The money they get for the aluminum helps pay for the stuff that costs them money to recycle. And I'm not the only one. Plenty of people give them their cans, judging by the full recycle dumpsters.