The CRV fee is a scam. Shouldn't have to pay for it if you don't recycle!

I don't know about your state, but here we pay 5 cents for each can or bottle or whatever else they decide to include in the scam. This is a huge government scam and I want to get a refund, I don't have time to recycle my cans and bottles and the state shouldn't charge me for it. I came up with a few ideas.

If we are forced to pay CRV and do not recycle, we should get a debit card from the government at the end of the year, to include all the money we have spent during the year. Maybe a way to include it in our taxes. I once got an 18 pack of miller genuine beer and it was on sale for about 8.99. I came out paying around 14. I asked the cashier, "why am I paying that much" she said, "CRV fee's" I said, "Look lady, I don't recycle, so I shouldn't have to pay for that". she gave me a weird look.

Don't get me wrong, I am all for going green, but I seen trash cans and there's alot more out there that's hurting global warming than cans or plastics. I figure I pay about 200 dollars a year on CRV, perhaps even more. Because I'm always buying 24 packs of bottled water and beer. So I think there should be a way to opt-out of this scam..I mean where does all the money go?

Used aluminum cans are a money maker. For any aluminum can that you recycle YOU should get payed. For bottles, it is not the same.

As for where the money goes. It goes to recycling facilities because plastic and glass bottles cost a lot of money to recycle (more money then it would cost to make the item itself). Your state or city pays a lot of money to recycle these goods for a net loss.

If you recycle, don't you get the money back? Isn't that the point? Here people recycle, there are bins at parks and schools. We do it not to get money back, but to reduce landfill waste.


You want money? Here is an idea for you. Just give me 3% of your net profits. Start a company that goes through land fills gather recyclables and cashing in on them. Go through landfills and collect bio-degradables and sell the high-grade soil that you end up with. Collect the methane and sell it to people as an energy source. Once your big enough, you can make ships to collect all the floating debris in the pacific ocean.


There you go, want to be a millionaire? I just helped you, and you would be looked upon as a saint to 'green' people world-wide for cleaning up landfills and waterways. You will be a saint and have more money than you will know what to do with.

Originally posted by FreeThinkerIdealist


There you go, want to be a millionaire? I just helped you, and you would be looked upon as a saint to 'green' people world-wide for cleaning up landfills and waterways. You will be a saint and have more money than you will know what to do with.

Those are great ideas FTI. but i guess i'm just lazy because I don't even feel like recycling my own cans and bottles. I do want more money in my pocket..but not by working harder for it by opening a recycling center. How about I just don't pay the fee because I don't recycle? just a simple solution to getting jacked up at the grocery store.

Those who recycle should pay the fee because they are getting their money back-and maybe because they love going to the recycling center-always full of homeless people and smelling of piss.

Those who don't recycle-don't pay the fee.

But I don't think that is the intention of the program. It is sort of a luxury tax. You can pay for your laziness by not getting the nickel return on your bottle, or choose not to buy products in bottles and cans

For instance, you could get a water system, and a refillable jug. Refill your jugs at the filtering machines in most grocery stores, and save even more money than you would by not paying the fee on the bottles and cans. If you get a couple 5 gallon jugs, you can be even lazier, since you won't have to get water nearly as often as you would in the little bottles, even if you buy the 24-packs. If you have a glass at home, then you are also not paying for paper cups.

You could also drink tap water, though it may not be as clean as you like it.


For soda, you can get one of those gallon re-usable cups (64 oz), Most convenience stores have very cheap refills at the fountain.

You can also make your own soda, just do a quick search for it online. Then you never have to pay for the recycle fee, nor help the soda companies profit margins ... plus you never have to leave the house to get soda, just a couple ingredients (sugar and flavoring, plus your 5-gallon water jug) on your normal grocery trip.


Not all recycle centers are full of distraught people. Most of the places I have been to usually have rich or 'classy' people putting their newspapers, glass, plastics, etc. in the proper bins, again, for no refund, since it is the city operate recycle program.


But again, you admit it is your laziness, so essentially it is a luxury tax for your addition to the landfill. I am not telling you, you must recycle, but, it is the same case for laziness of a bicycle versus a motorcycle. If you are lazy, then you won't pedal, you will pay for gas. They both get you to the same place.

Or let me put it in another crazy way, that doesn't exist, but makes a great example. Elevators and stairs. Elevators consume massive amounts of power and therefore have a greater negative effect on the enviromnet that staircases. So, the building starts charging a nickel a ride on the elevator to recoup rising electric costs, a minimal fee to the user as well. Your argument is that, those who are too lazy to use the stairs get waived the fee and ride for free, and those who use stairs get charged the fee, take the stairs, and get refuned when they reach their floor.

That is backwards in all honesty

You are punishing people for doing the right thing and not being lazy, and rewarding the people who are in essence not only being lazy, but destructive not only to themselves, but the bigger picture.

Now, even if you don't think that electric or recyclables effect the environment much (which I won't get into), it does effect supply. In recyclables, the more that gets put back into the system, the less we must search for the resources to make it. Plastics being petroleum based, and a known end to supply in the future, the more we conserve, the longer we have. Electricity, the more we produce and use, the less of the originating source in most cases (wind, solar, and water power excluded) that we have. So if a coal plant burns many tons more coal becuase of 'elevators', then there is less coal in the world to burn, or a nuclear plant has used up that bit more uranium.


So, in the big picture, either you pay your laziness tax, or help preserve finite resources.

Every little bit helps, and if your 5 cents goes to new resources, better recycling, or removing the stuff from the landfill you put it in ... then that 5 cents should be charged ... because it IS your choice to pay it.

How much does water or soda cost for you? I bet you I pay the same without getting money back if I recycle. You are not paying the fee as much as you think you are ... it is more like a incentive to reduce-reuse-recycle, than a punishing fee.

How about fighting a better fight than this menial expense. Fight the tax dollars being wasted, so that our economy is better and the value of the dollar goes up. That will mean a whole lot more than 5 cents a bottle. Fight excess government and spending ... then they could take a lower percentage in taxes to each citizen ... that will also mean more than 5 cents a bottle.


If you don't like the charge, you can choose not to spend money on products that have that charge. It is possible.

Originally posted by jedimiller
I don't have time to recycle my cans and bottles and the state shouldn't charge me for it. I came up with a few ideas.
I once got an 18 pack of miller genuine beer

Because I'm always buying 24 packs of bottled water and beer.

Maybe if you spent less time drinking, you'd have more time to recycle

Laziness is next to carelessness in this respect and I guess because you don't care, you're just in it for yourself and don't give a hoot about the future?

They charge you because they want you to recycle. If you're too lazy to do it, you don't get your money back. If you pick up other people's cans off the ground and recycle them, you get payed their share of the money.

The point is to provide an incentive to recycle. Though this might not be cool with libertarianism, it works, and that's a good thing to people who believe recycling is a good thing for the environment.

reply to post by jedimiller

You must know that by throwing away refundable deposit bottles and cans you are helping support the homeless population.I applaud you for your efforts to help the poor and destitute to feed themselves.Action by apathy you have to love this country.

I think part of the reason for implementing this was to make people want to pick up trash that other people trow down. I mean 5 or 10 cents doesn't mean much to some but others see dimes and nickels on the side of the road. I would imagine that you probably don't see many on the sides of the road in your state for this very reason. Keep trash of the sides of the road. Also like FreeThinkerIdealist said, why wouldn't you want to recycle? Especially with that incentive.

The pourpose of the CRV is to perhaps entice how shall I word this, the more ignorant of our society to recycle. It really should be 25-50 cents a bottle, then perhaps once it really means something to the aformentioned ignorant non recyclers, they too can get in the spirit

If you are that lazy then perhaps you should be drinking tap water.

Fred T you hit the nail on the head! JediMiller, sorry to say it mate but I find your POINT in this thread to be incredibly pathetic. As far as I can tell your motivation is to simply whine and complain about the recycling system. I would almost be willing to bet this issues means next to nothing to you but you felt like baiting other members into arguing with you. It is intriguing to me that you have the time to sit down and write out this, fairly weak post, yet you cant get off your duff and put your recyclables into a box so that they may be reused.

A few fun facts for you:

* Recycling a four-foot stack of newspapers saves the equivalent of one 40-foot fir tree.
* Every glass bottle recycled saves enough energy to light a 100-watt light bulb for 4 hours.
* Making cans from recycled aluminum saves 95% of the energy required to produce cans from virgin material.
* Americans throw away enough aluminum to rebuild the entire commercial airline fleet every three months. link

Patrick Atkins says there is plenty of aluminum in landfills — more aluminum than we can produce by mining ores. He is the director of energy innovation at Alcoa, a large aluminum manufacturing firm. He thinks the same is probably true of gold and copper, which are used in the circuit boards of computers and electronic gadgets. One ton of scrap from discarded PCs contains more gold than can be produced from 17 tons of gold ore--and humans throw away 20 million tons of electronic waste a year. Landfill mining is a fascinating sleeper of an idea that's actually been around for decades. link

[edit on 18-4-2008 by Animal]

i once had a small soda vending business, and you also have to pay tax on the CRV. the CRV is considered taxable income and you have to pay the state income taxes on it, by way of the state franchise tax board. even though i did not recieve income from the can itself, by recycling it myself, i had to still pay the tax on every can, that was bought out of my machines. this is in california by the way.

[edit on 18-4-2008 by jimmyx]

Originally posted by jimmyx
i once had a small soda vending business, and you also have to pay tax on the CRV. the CRV is considered taxable income and you have to pay the state income taxes on it, by way of the state franchise tax board. even though i did not recieve income from the can itself, by recycling it myself, i had to still pay the tax on every can, that was bought out of my machines. this is in california by the way.

[edit on 18-4-2008 by jimmyx]

I think the point is that you're supposed to charge more to the customer to offset it.

Not that I really agree with jedimiller, but in all honesty I see the CRV tax as another money-maker for the state. There's a better way, FreeThinkerIdealist came close to it, but my idea would also fight crime!

Instead of giving those people who chose to break the laws a comfy little cell they can sit in all day, and a nice big weight room to work out in, make them give something back to society. Here in Bama, we already have chain-gang crews that clean up the sides of the road, so why not expand the idea? Take these lawbreakers out to the local landfills and let them spend all day rummaging through other people's trash looking for recyclables.

This makes it a much more serious thing to be jailed, and criminals might just think twice before repeating their actions after they spend a few years sorting through dirty diapers and bathroom waste to find a few bottles. Plus, we'd be recycling, and it would cost law-abiding citizens nothing! Less crime, less tax, and a cleaner planet. What does everyone think?

TheRedneck

reply to post by FredT



I want to agree with the general consensus that the CRV is meant to encourage recycling, but consider this;

You are charged sales tax on top of the CRV fee.

If you make 20 purchases of CRV related items, you will be charged $1.00. This one dollar (in California, for example), will cost you $.07 in sales tax. That sales tax is charged at the end of your transaction, lost forever. That $.07 is not recovered in the recycling process, and I am then charged state income tax on top of that. The act of recycling should have more scruples than this.

FM

I collect my cans for a long time until I have a quite a few saved up. If I don't need the cash at the time, then I will offer them on freecycle, or find someone who can use the cash.

Last time we gave away $150.00 worth of cans. Giving them away helps me---gets them out of my garage, and helps someone else out.

We have a 10 cent deposit on cans here.

Fortunately, I live on the border of two states and if I dont' want to pay deposit, I just buy my pop over the state line that doesn't have a deposit. But I like to recycle.

[edit on 16-4-2009 by virraszto]

[edit on 16-4-2009 by virraszto]

Originally posted by FredT
The pourpose of the CRV is to perhaps entice how shall I word this, the more ignorant of our society to recycle. It really should be 25-50 cents a bottle, then perhaps once it really means something to the aformentioned ignorant non recyclers, they too can get in the spirit

If you are that lazy then perhaps you should be drinking tap water.

America, what a great country. Not only they charge a bottle tax for bottled water, they even put fluoride in your tap water that you pay.

reply to post by TheRedneck


Great idea! BUT I'd rather just kill them all off with death sentences. Less people = less trash. Hey they'd stop making babies also who'd probably grow up and commit the same crime that their parents did.