PORTAGE, Mich. \u2014 Michigan’s bottle and can return law turns 50 this year, and some stores say it’s time to recycle differently.<\/p>\n
A new survey found most retailers want to change the law, moving the returns off their property or eliminating them altogether.<\/p>\n
Vidya Mann runs Long Lake Liquor and Market in Portage.<\/p>\n
By law, she\u2019s required to put time and labor toward returns.<\/p>\n
“Every day I put in like an hour or two just sorting out cans,” she said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Like every other retailer selling them, she gives back a dime for each one, and like many others she has a room in the back with hundreds in plastic bags.<\/p>\n
“They have to be emptied,” she said about the return rules for customers. “Cleaned. We only accept what we sell here.”<\/p>\n
But not as many people return their cans today as they did in 1976.<\/p>\n
Less than 70% of them were brought back last year.<\/p>\n
It’s why a growing number of local retailers are pushing back against the lost space and germs from returned cans.<\/p>\n
A survey from Midwest Independent Retailers Association (MIRA) found over 90 percent of stores don’t want to handle recycling at all.<\/p>\n
MIRA has suggested a \u2018comprehensive recycling\u2019 system, meaning returns would go to drop-off centers rather than stores.<\/p>\n
The group has even floated moving away from deposits entirely.<\/p>\n
As a small business, Long Lake can\u2019t afford the sorting machines at big-box stores and loses money on bottle returns.<\/p>\n
“If they could do it, like go away, that’ll be great. But I do realize there is waste and, you know, we don’t want it ending up on the street.”<\/p>\n
However, the bottle law has also become an unintentional fundraiser.<\/p>\n
The Kalamazoo Animal Rescue started collecting can donations just before COVID and found it to be one of their biggest sources of income.<\/p>\n
Treasurer Sandy Haynick says doing away with return deposits would put a huge deficit in the rescue\u2019s mission, and prevent spay and neuter procedures for hundreds of animals every year.<\/p>\n
“That eliminates 20 to $30,000 of our income, which is around 5% of our annual budget,” she said. “So as a nonprofit, we rely on that source of income heavily.”<\/p>\n
She calls it a convenient way for people to give charitably without opening their checkbooks.<\/p>\n
“You\u2019ve already paid the 10-cent deposit on all your cans that you’ve purchased,” she said. So it’s an easy way to donate.”<\/p>\n
So far none of the legislation introduced this year would end the current bottle return law in the statehouse.<\/p>\n
MIRA says it\u2019s now talking to lawmakers to see if they\u2019re open to a change.<\/p>\n
“It’s only 10 cents at a time, but it really does add up in a big way,” Haynick said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PORTAGE, Mich. \u2014 Michigan’s bottle and can return law turns 50 this year, and some stores say it’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":873642,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79],"class_list":["post-873641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=873641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/873642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=873641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=873641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=873641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}