Simplest way to beat the recycling racket is by using the trash.
Here's something to consider. If recycling is such a good idea, why doesn't someone come to my house and buy my recyclables?
Recycling is more about helping the environment, than making money off of it.
Stuff like newspapers,cardboard, glass, and plastic really isn't worth much, so nobody will come to you and buy it.
Even if you had 100 cases of empty budweiser bottles ( $120 deposit where I live)and you called me to move them ( and lived only a few miles away), I'd probably do it free, but I doubt I'd pay you for them ( maybe $20). Any lesser quantity, and I wouldn't even bother with it.
It would be hard for me to get rid of them. I can't really dump that quantity at the corner liquor store, owner would freak out. I'd probably have to spend an hour or more feeding them into the machine at the supermarket.
If you somehow generated enough recyclable stuff of value ( aluminum,copper,etc.)somebody would come to you and buy it, but you'd pretty much have to be industrial in order to do it.
I don't think it would ever really be practical to drive cans to Michigan, unless you lived right near the stateline.
The deposit is really rather low, now. It was the same 5 cents back around 1980 or so, when it started here (CT). It's barely worth returning them now.
I'd rather have no deposit, and some sort of almost mandatory recycling, but it would be difficult to enforce.
