Just wondering how you all feel about the can deposit law

[Bluzmann57]

Every now and then, someone wants to overturn the nickel per can/bottle law that we have had in place for many years. Personally, I was in favor of it when it was first instituted and still am. Yeah, it can be a bit of a hassle, but in my case, I mostly leave the empties out back near the alley so that a homeless guy who wanders by here nearly every day can get them. In fact, I told him the other day that since I've cut back on my beer drinking, that there won't be quite as many bottles every week. He just shrugged and went on his way.
Anyway, after all this rambling, I just want to get a sense of how DUers here in our great state feel about the deposit law. And if I'm not mistaken, the law was enacted on Branstad's watch. So there is proof that even a blind squirrel can find a nut every now and then.

[Cairycat]

1. I started at UNI six months or so before the law was enacted.

The campus was covered in beer bottles and pop cans. Once the law was enacted, the difference was like night and day.

That was in '79, and Branstad wasn't elected until '82. I understood Bob Ray had helped it get through/didn't obstruct it, despite major bitching from the grocery industry. (It really gravels me how they're still bitching, even though people drink lots more pop than they did 30 years ago, so they're raking in the profits from that.)

So yeah, I'm in favor of it. The deposits are candy money for my kids, since they take the stuff back for me, so that takes most of the hassle out.

[Bluzmann57]

2. Thanks for the clarification

I wasn't sure who the Governor was at the time the law was passed. Obviously I was wrong about blind squirrels, etc.

[47of74]

3. Some days I could do with out it

Especially when I'm getting pop for work since I put the cans in the recycling bin at work. It's too much trouble to hang on to the cans and bring them home. I used to run over to Illinois and get pop there just to take in to work, but with gas what it is now I just get pop here in Iowa.

[petersjo02]

4. Keep it and raise the deposit and refund to 10 cents

Went on a vacation to Colorado in the years after our bottle bill was passed. I was shocked at how much junk was scattered about sites that tourists usually gravitate towards; I remember Royal Gorge especially. I came home with a new appreciation of our bottle bill.

[rurallib]

5. Yes - yes - yes. For several reasons

1) I collect cans for a charity. I was talking to the person in charge at the place I take them (Walcott). She was telling me they get but 1 cent per can/ bottle. Think how many cans/bottles need to be processed to make anything.
This price has not changed since it began
2) Over the years, I traveled a bunch. You can sure tell when you leave Iowa just by looking at the roadsides.
3) Not only does the price need to be upped, water bottles and energy drinks etc that didn't exist in 1979 need to be covered. Plastics recycling bins are just stuffed with water bottles. And they are always tossed on the roadside.

[progressoid]

7. +1

[IowaGuy]

6. It works...for the most part....

Take a look at someplace like Washington D.C compared to DM.
In DC the place is totally littered with plastic bottles, all over the mall and the surrounding areas where street vendors hawk them to tourists and passer-byes.
In DM, the homeless (of which there are a lot less than DC) keep things picked up good and for better or worse, it provides them with some much needed cash off the books.
Other people return their own and I believe that helps foster an overall environmental awareness.

Down side....stores and vendors don't like collecting the empties. They do have a point about the smell and hygiene aspects of it, but that's not a stopper in my book. They make the money by selling it, they should build into their prices the cost of handling it and shut up and deal with the consequences. Some stores limit the number that can be returned.....seems to me, until they can show that vastly more are returned to their store than are bought...they have no moral authority or business case to make to make, that they should not handle whatever anybody brings in.