I couldn't be bothered going to a recycling depot so I would leave my recyclables outside next to the bins. People would walk around afternoon/night collecting all the recyclables with deposits from people's bins (recycling and trash).
It seems far simpler than your proposal.
But they only motivate manufacturers' packaging choices in the rare case where it's more cost effective to recycle the material than to purchase it new. If it's cheaper to use something that ends up in a landfill, most companies just will.
I think we need something that motivates them to want it back no matter what it's made out of.
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I make beer and I've been reusing the same bottles for years. The trick is to rinse them right away, otherwise it's a pain to get the dried beer gunk off the bottom. Bottle return programs don't motivate users to clean the bottles, so they need to be recycled rather than merely sanitized and reused (I think).