Todays, rant is sponsored by sticky floors and the smell of stale beer, something that drives me crazy every time we're in that cramped sideroom in a grocery store with a disgusting amount of beeping and for some reason you need to peel your foot up after every step you take, that's right I'm talking about bottle deposits.
Yes, as a Michigander we're among the chosen residents of one of the nine states cuckholded with this quirky side quest. So, grab a drink (don't forget the 10 cents deposit).
If you've ever set foot on a college campus, visited a dive bar, or experienced the wonders of a frat house, you know that empty bottles don't only attract the infamous "you up?" texts at 2:00 am but also a swarm of bugs. Fruit flies, gnats, and who knows what else, thanks to those containers. Let's be honest, finding storage space for bags of cans, is that really the most efficient use of anyone's garage space but yet Michiganders are forced to designate an area in their garages, sheds, or mudrooms to these cans, the least they could do is kick us back with a tax break like any other company participating in a recycling program.
Now, jumping into the concept itself. Sure, the idea of motivating people to recycle by adding a deposit to each can and bottle might sound great if this was a prequel to Disneys smash hit WALL-E . But in practice, it becomes a colossal pain in the ass. On top of this we've done our part as a consumer purchasing the product, paying taxes on it, it's time that this burden be taken on by someone else, I'm not sure who but if the other 41 states could figure something out I'm sure we could too.
The bottle deposit, a fancy term for a security deposit on your beloved beverage containers. The logic is sound, right? We don't want people throwing cans out their car windows. But here's my problem, if you bring a case of beer or NA's to a friend's house for a midweek hangout, are you seriously expected to collect your cans, embark on a grand journey back home, find storage space for them, and then make the trek to return them? It's like adding so many extra steps to just enjoying some old beverages there's all to get that elusive $8.10 return slip per trashbag of cans, then you still need to take that slip and return it to a checkout lane to get cash back, it's a broken system I say we move towards a new metric have a straight conversation of
10 cans = 1 scratch off ticket.
Let's take a moment to think about this. Just imagine if we could gather all those forgotten, lost, broken, and abandoned cans and bottles and receive a one time lump sum payment for all of them. The econmy would be booming, like nothing ever seen before. Move over stimulus checks, we've struck aluminum.
Cheers 🍻
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