Take your empties to the bottle depot or you use your City blue bin?

[Shin Pad]

I usually give them to the scouts or school organizations, etc., that are having bottle drives.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

True story. You'll probably see a posting in every depot you go to. It is crazy, but it makes sense.

If I'm a bottle depot in BC, take $100,000, export them to AB, profit $100,000.

Ahh I see.

I take it then this law is to prevent large scale operations and more specifically bottle depots from abusing the different deposits from province to province.

Not like they're going to arrest me for bringing that bottle I had from Kelowna with the rest of my bottles to the depot.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

Ahh I see.

I take it then this law is to prevent large scale operations and more specifically bottle depots from abusing the different deposits from province to province.

Not like they're going to arrest me for bringing that bottle I had from Kelowna with the rest of my bottles to the depot.

I know someone who has family in Montana, where there is zero deposit, and they are always scheming to bring up cans etc.

I don't know if they have ever actually tried it though.

[jayswin]

Count me in the lazy group. God damn, what a terrible place those bottle depots are. Especially in the summer, as you stand there with a bag of smelly cans and bottles, amongst a group of other people with smelly bottles and cans.

Then you get up there and start sorting, and the excess beer/pop etc gets all over your hands. Then when you leave, you go straight home and take a shower to get the stench of that awful place off you.

All for some extra pocket cash. And that's not coming from a rich guy who doesn't need money. That's coming from someone who'd rather pick one activity or item that costs what I'd get from returning bottles and not do that activity or buy that thing, just so I don't have to spend any amount of time in a bottle depot.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by flameswin

Count me in the lazy group. God damn, what a terrible place those bottle depots are. Especially in the summer, as you stand there with a bag of smelly cans and bottles, amongst a group of other people with smelly bottles and cans.

Then you get up there and start sorting, and the excess beer/pop etc gets all over your hands. Then when you leave, you go straight home and take a shower to get the stench of that awful place off you.

All for some extra pocket cash. And that's not coming from a rich guy who doesn't need money. That's coming from someone who'd rather pick one activity or item that costs what I'd get from returning bottles and not do that activity or buy that thing, just so I don't have to spend any amount of time in a bottle depot.

Do you work there? The employees do the sorting, you just dump the bottles/cans on the work benches for them.. did they trick you into touching your old, moldy milk jugs?

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Do you work there? The employees do the sorting, you just dump the bottles/cans on the work benches for them.. did they trick you into touching your old, moldy milk jugs?

Maybe it depends on which one? Some do I guess, but the one by my house, you have to put them into the flats they provide and then pass them in to them.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by Rathji

I know someone who has family in Montana, where there is zero deposit, and they are always scheming to bring up cans etc.

I don't know if they have ever actually tried it though.

That's cool. I didn't even notice that when I brought back a load of cherry and vanilla coke last time I was down there.

[puckluck2]

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

You can face up to a $50,000 fine for doing that and a $500,000 fine for the depot that accepts it.

I hate BC bottle depots. Separating pop from beer is ridiculous.

I bring them in to answer the original question, usually $80-$90 per trip, so it seems worth it.

Ha! I didn't actually purposely bring back my cans from B.C to sell them here...Hyperbole on my part. And besides it was only like 6 bottles.

45 cents richer!!

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by flameswin

Maybe it depends on which one? Some do I guess, but the one by my house, you have to put them into the flats they provide and then pass them in to them.

Well, that would certainly suck and I might be less cheery about taking recyclables in if I had to do the sorting. I just toss everything into a garbage bag and then empty it out on their work tables... This is the method up by Harvest Hills, and I don't remember it being different at the downtown bottle depot.

[Rerun]

Originally Posted by flameswin

Maybe it depends on which one? Some do I guess, but the one by my house, you have to put them into the flats they provide and then pass them in to them.

Originally Posted by Wormius

Well, that would certainly suck and I might be less cheery about taking recyclables in if I had to do the sorting. I just toss everything into a garbage bag and then empty it out on their work tables... This is the method up by Harvest Hills, and I don't remember it being different at the downtown bottle depot.

I too have never been to a bottle depot where you had to sort your cans and bottles before giving it too them.

I think flameswin should start going to a different depot.

[Danijam]

Before blue bins I used to take bottles and cans to the depot and dump the bags on the table for sorting. After 30 seconds of watching the poor guy or girl wade through the chaos I would always pitch in because I felt so badly watching them weed through sticky cans to tally up my reward - which rarely ever amounted to more than twenty bucks. At the end there was a filthy little sink with a bar of crusty, dirty soap to 'clean up' with... overall it was a very third-world experience.

Now that there are blue bins I'd rather save my Saturday morning and donate my cans to industrious bums or the City if the cans make it that far.

[longsuffering]

Originally Posted by flameswin

Apparantly you aren't familiar with CP's best poster. I'll give you half an hour to go over some of his posting history, and then report back to me.

Would someone really do that?

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by longsuffering

Would someone really do that?

Not sure.

[Tiger]

The time it takes to sort them, take them in, stand on sticky floors with wasps around, have the guy cheat on the counting, etc. It is not worth my time. I throw them all in the blue bin and let the homeless people pick them out.

[AMG_G]

I just gave 4 garbage bags full to a soccer team bottle drive this morning.

[Aleks]

Hmm. Pm me if you guys don't want bottles. I do. Substantial amounts preferred.

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by Tiger

The time it takes to sort them, take them in, stand on sticky floors with wasps around, have the guy cheat on the counting, etc. It is not worth my time. I throw them all in the blue bin and let the homeless people pick them out.

Sounds like you haven't been to a bottle depot since 1995. That was the last time I remember going to a place that sorts them. If you tell us what part of the city you are in, I'm sure somebody will tell you of a place that clean (for a bottle depot.)

As for the cheating; most have a display that shows how many they count at a time. I just make sure it looks like I am counting along with the guy, and hope for the best. Besides, is it better to lose the 5-10% from a cheater; or to lose 100% by not going?

[handgroen]

i've toured the cascades recycling centre here in calgary a few times and it's a very slick operation and the bottles and cans are accounted for and the money goes straight back to the city of calgary. also your paper pulp and glass are sold at a profit and the money goes back to the city.

but as far as what i do, i go to the depot

[Austin Powers]

I return bottles.

The place I go to is usually very quick and has screens where they display how much you have as they add it up. A receipt prints off and you bring it to the cashier.

It usually takes 10 minutes or so (sometimes less) and I usually get between 25-35 dollars.

[redflamesfan08]

Originally Posted by ken0042

Sounds like you haven't been to a bottle depot since 1995. That was the last time I remember going to a place that sorts them. If you tell us what part of the city you are in, I'm sure somebody will tell you of a place that clean (for a bottle depot.)

As for the cheating; most have a display that shows how many they count at a time. I just make sure it looks like I am counting along with the guy, and hope for the best. Besides, is it better to lose the 5-10% from a cheater; or to lose 100% by not going?

Challenge accepted. Live in Cougar Ridge and just want to find a bottle depot that doesn't make the guy returning the bottles do all the work. Like others have said I'd rather be short-changed at the depot than give up 100% to the blue-bin.

The depots you guys are describing don't match any of the ones I've seen in Calgary, which are all the standard (or so I thought) setup where you put all your cans in the disgusting trays yourself, then someone pretends to count it before handing you some random amount of money.