Aluminum Foiled Again

Here in Oregon, as in many states, we pay a deposit on most of our single-serve beverage containers. Beer bottles, pop cans, and now water bottles... we pay a nickel apiece at the checkout, then return them to the grocer for a refund.

In theory, it's a good idea. Literally tons of glass, plastic and aluminum are kept out of landfills, and our parks and roads are free of beverage litter and broken glass bottles. Most large retailers have machines set up outside the store that count your empties and issue a receipt that you can take in to the store to redeem for cash.

In practice, the bottle bill is a pain in the ass. We have to save up our empties- separate of course, from trash and recycling. Then, we have to remember to bring them back to the store. Then, we have to deal with the three big problems with can returns:

1. Each store is only obligated to accept returns for products that they sell. Which means if you bought Dr. Skipper from Safeway, you can't take those cans back to Fred Meyer.

2. The machines I mentioned earlier are quite prone to fill up, jam, mis-print, reject, mis-read, or otherwise malfunction. This means a trip into the store to the customer service desk. The customer service lady pages the lowest man on the grocery totem to the bottle return area. It always takes him about 5 minutes to finish his smoke, then another 5 minutes to walk all the way through the store to get to the machines. When he finally does show up, he usually does something like the Fonz did to the jukebox at Arnold's, and the machine resets itself and works again for another 40 cans or so.

3. Due to the above problems, a cottage industry has arisen: Seagulling. Seagulls are the men on bicycles who stand about 20 yards away from the machines and wait for people to walk away from their broken machine in disgust, or for someone to throw their Select Diet Cola cans into the trash at Albertson's. You can feel their eyes boring into the back of your jacket, waiting for you to give up. The Seagulls have plenty of time to wait for customer service. The Seagulls have plenty of time to shuttle their wares between grocery stores. The Seagulls are not bothered by the stench of month old beer bottles. I think the Seagulls are getting wealthy one nickel at a time.