https://fox40.com/news/california-co...ng-fraud-case/
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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.
Hills can correct me if I am wrong, but Maine had a similar issue and legislation added a limit on the daily quantity that can redeemed by each customer trying to deter interstate imports (high volume).
About Arizona and California, I recall that some people (can't remember who) posted here that some Phoenix scrap yards had different prices: one for flat or damaged cans and a higher one for clean UBC? Never heard something similar elsewhere. By the way, the other state without bottle return system who's next to California, Nevada, doesn't seem to have the same level of fraud. If they carry cans from Phoenix, I am surprised that no one was caught doing the same from Las Vegas or Reno. It always seems to be coming from Arizona.
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 $hit where you eat.)
The other problem is that the gal at the checkout might have a long line of customers with groceries waiting on her. She doesn't have time to count your bottles and put them away somewhere.
It was a poor solution, but they got the limit of 120 a day written into law. It still screws things up ... but not like if someone came in with a whole pickup truck of bottles & cans.
New Hampshire has a bottle bill?
That's a good point. I never realized that NH doesn't have a bottle bill. I stand corrected good sir !
I dunno ... i took over the day to day operation of the local transfer station here last year. It's a challenging job but i like working with the townspeople and serving the community. Only got another five years or so left before retirement. It seems like a good way to finish up my adult working life. Not a bad job for an old guy.
Those ^&*$#@! 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 ?
Up here, the unclaimed money is supposed to be reinvested in green initiatives, but it is plausible that these funds find some mysterious ways to go in the government's general account as well.
The crazy thing about California's deposit is they also put sales tax on it. So on some places if you buy say a 6 pack of beer that's an extra 30 cents and they tax that and if you want a plastic bag for your beer you have to pay for the plastic bag. Lol probably tax the bag fee as well.
Bag info here. 10 cents a bag.
https://calrecycle.ca.gov/plastics/c...0charge%20less.
In Toronto, about 10-15 years ago, they started to tax plastic bags 5¢ each when they were free in the suburbs, but retailers then started to charge the own bag tax across the country. Some stores said that their profits were returned to environmental projects, but it was absolutely clear that the larger grocery stores just pocketed extra profits.
Plastic bags are now banned in many towns and cities, including City of Montreal. You gotta bring your own reusable bags.
Hills,Quote:
Originally Posted by 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.
To the guys bringing them in fraudently!Quote:
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by mthomasdev
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.
Unless you prefer Michigan: :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1blsZxXDCU
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by hills
It's a different setup where you are. The main difference is with the count. It fast tracks the whole process if they will just take your word for what's in the bag.Quote:
Originally Posted by mthomasdev
The redemption center here ... where they do the hand counts ... has a reputation of shorting people on the count.
I used to be pretty strict on the had counts. The Tomra machines did 90% of the work, but we had a fair amount of glass bottles that would be rejected because they didn't have a bar code. I would have to inspect each reject to make sure that it had some kind of deposit on it. Wasn't doing it to be a **** ... but i rejected a lot of bottles that wouldn't pass the muster cause we wouldn't be paid for them when we sent them on up the chain.
All in all ... it would still be a lot of work to gain a fraudulent dollar. Really more in the realm of the bottom feeders with a drug problem who are desperate for cash. Those guys generally don't last long before it all comes crashing down on them.
It's kinda sad to work at the bottle redemption place sometimes. You see poor folks come in during the evening with their bottles to make a few extra bucks. If it weren't for the bottle money ... their kids probably wouldn't eat that night.
Anyway ... off on a tangent. Sorry bout that. It's just that you meet all different kinds over the years. You can tell a lot about a person from the bottles they bring in.