Hacker News Reader

Comment by wil421 | Hacker News Reader

Plastic is cheaper and doesn’t shatter. Some states in the US still have the refund thing for bottles. I’ve seen a vending machine in NYC for bottle refunds and one in Munich, Germany.

When I was in Central America they wouldn’t let you leave the store with the bottle. They would provide a plastic bag where you could sip the coke out with a straw.

View on HN

Germany is interesting - they have a nationwide bottle return system. Every supermarket over a certain size is required to have a bottle return system in place, and compensate you accordingly. It's called the "pfand" (deposit) system.

It's a way to make some money for poorer people too - collecting the bottles from the bins and public areas of the city can be quite lucrative. One plastic bottle gives you 25 cents, one beer bottle 8-15 cents.

To be clear: the bottle redemption machines in New York crush bottles, they don't save them for reuse

Wow I did not know that. It’s likely being thrown in a land fill. The garbage companies around me stopped collecting bottles years ago.

Do they do it to keep trash off the streets?

If NYC was into keeping the trash off the streets, they'd rather invest in better garbage collection methods than their current one, which is to have people just leave trash bags right there on the sidewalk, leaking all kinds of disgusting fluids all over the place. Really, Manhattan is such a disgusting, dirty, smelly place full of trash, that a few additional glass bottles here and there won't make too much of a difference.

The New York stuff goes to a place near Rochester, IIRC, and is back on the shelf as a bottle in a few weeks. Less for cans.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com