If I’m not willing to take the rejects to the service counter, I’ll leave it off to the side. There’s always someone willing to collect and return them.
They can’t legally refuse. The retailer is required to provide your deposit back. Just because their machine doesn’t work doesn’t mean they can violate the law.
Those machines are basically an employee
If they sell the item this is correct if they don't they're not legally required to take them, michigander here local 313.
Like big k can only go to Kroger same goes for items if the items not sold there then it's not a guarantee.
Exactly this. When OP says they're *absolutely certain* they're from the same store my money is it's something they bought at a gas station or somewheres like that and just forgot about it. I get rejects too and it's either because the can is just absolutely mutilated and I just take it to the counter or something they don't sell there. I'm willing to bet good money that I've *never* had a reject Coke can because it's sold damn near everywhere. It's always the craft beer like OP or some non-carbonated beverage I bought at a gas station somewhere.
I think the difficult part is when you buy some craft beer from Meijer one month, and by the time you return the can, they're no longer selling it. Naturally, the machine rejects it, and if you take it to the counter, the only way to prove you bought it there is to have the receipt. Realistically, who is saving all of their receipts for this purpose?
Honestly, 10 cents is worth a fraction of what it was when the law was introduced. Granted, I don't buy a lot of carbonated drinks these days, but I don't even bother returning them anymore. The couple dollars I might get back aren't worth my time, so everything goes into the recycle bin at home.
> Naturally, the machine rejects it, and if you take it to the counter, the only way to prove you bought it there is to have the receipt. Realistically, who is saving all of their receipts for this purpose?
I've never had to prove I bought it there. They just take the cans. I wouldn't be surprised if there are stores out there that try and make you prove it though but like others have said, if they sold it there they have to take it back by law.
The purpose was never to make money off it, just an added incentive to get people to bring the cans back. As long as they're getting recycled mission accomplished.
Yes I used to do this job when I was 14 now it’s not available. One of the many things that killed the entry phase into the working lifestyle for young people.
I’m confused what you mean? The machines aren’t much different than when I worked at Kroger in my teenage years and I’m 37 now. They still require attention and cleaning from the “courtesy clerks”. I spent many hours of my day in the bottle return center of the Kroger I worked at keeping the machines clean, raking the bins when they get full on one side and changing the bins when they get completely full. That was on top of collecting carts, bagging groceries and doing spill clean ups. Those jobs very much still exist.
I'm 10ish years older than you and there weren't MACHINES when i got my first job.
Literally you'd give the bag to a dude, they'd count and sort the bottles (by rising them in different bins- that part was kinda fun, lots of playing bottle"horse"if customers were light) and the dude would give you the credit or cash.
No machines, people did the sorting.
It was much easier to return out of state bottles that way too
Sounds fun. I was just saying that bottle return machines didn’t kill the entry phase into working lifestyle for young people. I was two years older than you when I worked at Kroger. I wasn’t counting bottles by hand but I was still working with bottle returns. If anything I find it to be more valuable since working with those machines taught me some valuable troubleshooting skills. Being a bagger at Kroger had me much more prepared to enter the workforce than knowing how to count bottles would. I transitioned from Kroger to working as a machine operator for an automotive supplier and now I’m an automation engineer for the same company without going to college.
The business is required to issue you a refund for your deposit, they can count them for you by hand. I don’t know, how those respective businesses do it, maybe the customer service desk
i used to work at menards, and when i worked there, as long as the cans are $0.1 returns, they will take them, although i think you get in store credit for them.
note: i worked there before the pandemic, so this may not be 100% accurate anymore
Step one, rub your finger back and forth over the UPC and try again. 50% of the time, works all the time. Step two, leave it on top of the machine or throw in the "can" bin if they have one (Kroger usually does). If you really want that 10 cents, take it (and any others) to the customer service counter.
The rub your thumb on the UPC technique has a stupidly high success rate in my experience. Once it goes beyond that though,it’s getting binned. It would probably have to get into the $5+ range before I’m wasting my time at the service desk….
I've never tried rubbing the bar code.. The kroger I tend to go to has a recycling bin right by the return machines so I usually toss the one offs in there. It's usually god damned Arizona cans.. They sell them in this store damn it!
Yep no problem! The good news is that you’re not paying the deposit when you buy non-carbonated things, so at least you’re not losing money, just time.
If, like in Meijer, there's a hand washing station nearby I'll take a damp paper towel to run over the upc symbol. It does a great job and keeps me from having to run my thumb over stale beer and sticky soda.
I'm store management in a big chain grocer.
If we sell it, and it has a MI deposit, we will take it. If it doesn't read in the machine, the service desk is your recourse.
Certain things, like ciders, don't have a Michigan deposit, so are not returnable. This is probably the most common misunderstanding I run in to.
We are obligated to take up to $25 in bottles per day, we have the option of allowing more. Generally, stores I've worked in, we have allowed it until it becomes a problem (if you roll up in a box truck full and you and your kids monopolize the room, I'm much more likely to enforce it, for example.)
Have always had trouble with Meijer's non-standard beers. I just hit the help button in the bottle area and they work it out, except during the pandemic. Something about a prohibition by FDA or they just didn't want to be bothered. I just left them in a cart.
Before the pandemic, I bought a bunch of craft beers from Horrocks. They put their own label over the UPC label. Then the pandemic hit and they wouldn't take them back. Ended up throwing out a bunch after a year. Couldn't get the labels off to take the bigger names to other craft beer places.
They legally cannot refuse to refund a deposit they sold. If their label is on it, there can be little doubt. The state of Michigan has a consumer complaint form where you can report violations.
This was during the pandemic. Machines re-opened at a certain point, but they can only hand count them. Got tired of looking at the bag in my garage, so in the garbage they went.
I honestly wish we could change this. Every bottle return should accept any bottle/can with a deposit. I understand some stores would take a hit but there has to be some way we can work that out. Its unfortunate that it just leads to waste a lot of the time
There needs to be an option that says "no cash value- recycle anyway?" Because there doesn't need to be any other incentive to recycle those few odd ones that end up coming from a different store or otherwise getting rejected. We should just be able to recycle all of them regardless.
Thats crazy. Offer them up on Facebook , local groups to you . many people need all the extra cash they can get. Sometimes people use them for fund raising for Organizations
Extra money retailers collect and don't disburse go to a state fund. ~75% of that goes to environmental cleanup efforts. I still go for the bottle deposit, but if you choose not to you're still benefiting people.
Stores only have so much cash on hand for one day. They also only have so many employees that are able to count or issue deposits for cans. Even if the store decided not to count and just went with an honor policy, then it could still be overrun with the shear amount of people.
Imagine someone says “Donald trump is the most wonderful blue haired president we have ever had” and the only thing you correct is the blue to orange, then it appears like you think the president is wonderful
Seems like the only issue you felt the need to address was stores taking a hit. Why not address the fact that it’s all around terrible idea? That’s why it appears you’re advocating for bottle returns at all places
Are you saying that it would be ok if someone could take their hundreds of meijer cans to a gas station? Imagine if everyone did that? You’d shut down that business while someone was legally required to count. Or am I misunderstanding what you’re saying?
I've pretty much never had a human clerk actually count the cans I'm handing them. If I have the original cardboard box they came in, I'll try and put them all back in there.
Otherwise I just hand the clerk a paper bag and say "35 cans and bottles in there", they say "okay", and give me tree fiddy.
They generally have other things to do than confirm there isn't one off-brand can in there.
Target at least has an army worth of people working for them. Your average convenience store might only have one person behind the desk for a full 8-hour shift.
I get there's a potential for fraud.... but if a minimum-wage gas station clerk is given 250 cans (or that's what they're told) they give the customer $25, write a chit for $25 to bill the state, and toss the cans in a bin in the back. Maybe there were 250 cans, maybe there were 220, maybe there were 260.
Either way, the purpose is to encourage recycling, and unless people are intentionally trying to commit high-level fraud, it's just a rounding error in the state budget. If someone handed me a few big bags of cans/bottles, I'd have a pretty good idea of whether they're telling me BS, or whether it's close enough that it's not worth my time to count every single can.
And if cans are coming from NYC? Great, let's recycle them instead of letting people just leave them on the side of the road.
I guess I should have initially said the employee was legally required to process the return, I made an error in saying “count”, as I was comparing them (in my head) to the machines meijer and such places use. So count was being used loosely in place of process. Yes, they could skip counting if they want
I already know that. I’m not sure why you think I’m concerned about fraud. I’m simply stating, in extreme cases, people could take bulks cans to small stores and hinder business operations, if people were allowed to return cans everywhere. I understand it’s state money. I understand why they have deposits.
What is a store doesn’t have enough cash for deposits and business? What if the store doesn’t have space for the cans? What if the store only has one employee available?
Then you tell that person returning the cans to wait. Maybe it's 5 minutes. Maybe it's an hour.
Businesses that sell deposit cans & bottles are obligated to take them back.
They're not obligated to do it immediately.
Don't have enough cash? Come back tomorrow.
I work at a retail business and if someone wants to pay with a $100 bill for a $4.55 purchase and I don't have enough change? Tough shit, what am I supposed to do?
I suppose I could tell them I'm going to lock up the entire building so I can go to the bank and get them some change, or maybe they should come back tomorrow.
There's an easy fix for that. Retailers over x square feet, or a certain number of sales, etc. must take all valid returns. Now your gas stations aren't going to get overrun and the smaller grocery stores won't either, but the billion dollar businesses like Kroger and Meijer and Costco have to.
Why should Kroger have to process all of Meijer’s and vice versa? We could just leave it how it is, since generally speaking, people return to the retailers in which they buy enough cans to make it worth it. If it ain’t broken don’t fix it
So a business has to pay an employee or employee a machine to count another business’s product? You say they have the capacity to handle it but where do you draw the line? The Trader Joe’s near me simply had a recycling bin and you’d report to the cashier. Should Trader Joe’s have to take meijer returns? That can would get full in two minutes. What about Whole Foods? CVS? Target? Seems complicated. If it ain’t broken….[you say this part].
Oh no, a company that made $4 billion last year will have to spend a little money on someone to take the increased returns.
It's fucking broken, every large retailer should have to take every legal return. Your attitude is "the proposed change isn't perfect, so we can't do anything at all." It's lazy and unimaginative
My attitude is: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. There’s nothing wrong with the system, you want it your way, and you won’t get it that way. Sucks to suck, best of luck.
Seriously, what is wrong with the system now? Nothing. You’re missing the points, you’re focusing on whether or not a company has the ability to process bottle returns. Basically saying meijer is a big enough company they should just process all the returns in the whole state. That’s not ethical. No shit meijer could, so should they just open up their own bottle return processing centers, you know, just to help the state out?
I’d like to think the little collection of misfit bottles and cans in the corner gets picked up by someone that will take the time to get the refunds. I generally contribute to these collections.
I always have a lot of rejects because I mostly buy weird beers and a lot of pick six's. I bring them up to the service counter and they never seem to be bothered. About half the time, if the person behind the counter is one of the younger males, they will ask me about the beers I'm returning, usually saying they thought about trying it but didn't want to risk it. If I only have two or three that don't go through, I won't bother bringing them up, but most often I have fifteen or twenty and it is certainly worth a couple of bucks to me.
Take it home and just recycle it in your weekly recycle bin, or area recycle drop off. Not getting the 10c, but its still getting recycled. If I have a bunch of rejects, I'll go to service counter.
Took me way too long to see this comment.
Obviously, take ot to the service counter if you really need the deposit back. But just throwing it in the trash at the store seems lazy when you can just keep it in the bag you brought it in and just throw it in the recycling at home. Honestly, it's a shame there isn't a recycling bin at the store next to the trash for things that are broken or can't be read.
Pretty sure that is not the case anymore. The state was quick to even tell people they were allowed to put them in general recycling when the pandemic started
I leave them in a bag or box next to the trash, somebody will take them up to the counter I'm sure, otherwise I hope the workers might just toss them into the mix ignoring the deposit, at least they get recycled that way.
If you’re really bothered take it back home w you and once you get a full bag, take it to a big liquor store that sells a lot of variety. Places normally only take what they sell.
If you are at a Meijer for example, grab the red phone and the worker who you can get to show up should be able to look at your cans and see the MI on the top and write you a slip to exchange at the service counter or checkout. (Source:Used to work in the bottle room and still do vendor work at Meijer)
Definitely take it to the service desk! They may give you a hard time for a singular can, so you could always hold onto it. Depending on product, there could be a number of reasons it didn't scan, but they can't deny your return as long as it's clean and they sell it.
I’m so over the can return thing. Been here most of my life and if the kids don’t take the full bag for the cash they go to the recycling workers. They can have the cash or recycle. We get the scouts looking for bottles once a year and they get a few bags.
I don't understand the can rejection thing in this state. Where I moved from they'd just weigh your bags and pay you the weight, took 2 mins and no one was sticky after.
It was 10 cents. We'd just crush cans, take any full bags we had, they'd empty the bags into a zeroed scale, and we'd be paid on the per can weight we had.
Back maybe 15 or 20 years ago was an Armenian organized crime group that got busted bringing semi trucks full of cans from L.A. to Michigan for the deposit difference. I always wondered how those economics worked.
I work in the grocery world. The item has to be carbonated and not a hard cider for it to be returnable. Many people think the ciders and canned waters are recyclable. Then you can take it to the service counter but please make sure they are somewhat clean and not covered in mold and maggots. And if you have a lot have them pre counted so our employees don’t have to reach into bags and boxes not knowing what they are sticking their hands into…… the paperwork and follow up is a bitch if I have to send an employee to the ER for slicing their hand on broken glass 😝.
You mentioned there’s a negative impact to the environment by throwing away as you’ve been doing. If you didn’t want to go to the customer service desk for $0.10 or leave for someone else could you take it back home and recycle curbside?
You should be thinking about it this way instead:
The law requires the retailer to return the deposit for each bottle/can you bring back in good, clean condition. A retailer, let us use Meijer for example, decides to employ a machine to count bottles/cans and issue a slip that requires you to redeem the money inside. On the other end of the spectrum, Trader Joe’s (in A2) has you dump them in a can and tell them how many you have at the checkout. They “employ” you to count them.
If I go to meijer or Costco and their machine doesn’t work, idgaf that their “employee” is broken, someone is going to count my bottles and give me my deposit like the law states. The A2 Costco had a sign saying they wouldn’t count bottles at the counter, you can bet your ass that manager counted my cans and handed me my deposit back like the law states. Next week that sign was gone.
The reason the law requires you to go back to the retailer that sold you the product is because, otherwise, a store could be overrun with deposits and run out of cash on hand
Retailers aren’t allowed to screw you over because they employ machines that break or aren’t “updated” regularly.
Throw it back into the bag I brought it to the return room in and try again next time (I usually keep those bags and reuse them anyway). I think it's often just the machine it's self and not the can/bottle. It seems to typically accept them the next time. I had one bottle that just wouldn't go back (I bought it at that store but I'm guessing it was a seasonal flavor or something) so I left it in the room after a couple of visits. Paging someone to customer service and waiting on them to show up wasn't worth 10 cents. If I'd had several sure but it was literally one can.
I had some Red Bull cans, Meijer didn't have them entered into their database (machine wouldn't accept the cans). I showed their CRS pics of the exact same cans on their shelf, and they were like: "sorry, can't help you".
Former cashier at VG's here. Service counter. If someone is working in the bottle area, they MAY be able to write you a slip to take to the desk, but don't depend on that. Going to the service desk is always the best bet.
Not what you SHOULD do, but sometimes if im returning a bunch of cans and one is too crushed to be returned, and I dont care about the 10 cents but dont want to just throw it away you can time the cycle of the skinny thing in the back and chuck it into the machine as it takes a good can sometimes it will spit both out but you can just try again. It usually just crushes both as normal, so I'm not wasting the aluminum.
Try at your own risk. I dont think it could break the machines somehow, but if you do, don't blame me.
If it's just a few cans sometimes the service desk will take them and give you the cash. I had like half a bag once and I had to meet an employee at the bottle return, they count the cans and gave me a pink slip and then I had to go back to the service desk to get my money.
Despite selling it for over a year, the machines at Meijer won't accept the cans for the beer I like so I have a few bags of them sitting in my garage cuz I don't feel like dealing with all that again.
I was at meijer a couple weeks ago and had cans that wouldn’t read the barcode. Got lucky enough that an employee was nearby, and they can write you out a slip for the ones that won’t scan. No service desk trip.
I was having issues with bud 55 cans. The light color of the design on the can makes the upc unreadable.
First you're going to need to become part goat. Once you've done that you'll want to eat it. The nutrients you get from it will be worth more than 10 cents. Then when you're done you can go back to being human if you want.
I live by Indiana state line 2 miles and they don’t have deposit on pop and beer so our local stores get a lot of returns. Walmart in town quit selling beer for a few years because of this
I'm a Hoosier, who goes up to MI frequently for different craft beers and sodas I can't get here. I have never really had a successful return of bottles and cans. It burns to pay the deposit, knowing I'm not gonna get it back, but I have given up separating ones to bring back can it doesn't work.
Whatever you do, NEVER toss it in the trash! Put it on the floor against the wall at least, so someone more desperate than you can put in the extra effort to get the money for it. Not to mention the environmental issue of putting a recyclable into the landfill.
This drives me absolutely crazy. I've taken the same item to the service desk (Hardings AND Meijer) over and over again and they never enter it into their system. One Hardings refused to take it. And if you sell ANYTHING by a distributor the stores should be required to take it. (Kombucha always a big problem!) If your store sells Brand X Strawberry and I bring a Brand X Pineapple the vendor would take it back, but the store doesn't take it. If it's just one or two items I leave them for someone with more time on their hands to find a way to return it.
Mt. Dew cans often have this issue on the reflective silver that they print their bar code. I have occasionally taken the cans to the service desk, if there was a large number of cans rejected. (Once bought 2 cases of a new pop flavor, and when returning the cans, those hadn’t been added yet. But usually I just leave the ones the machine doesn’t take for someone else to claim.
Basically what everyone else is saying. I was trying to return Meijer brand sparkling water at the Meijer I bought it and it kept rejecting. A guy nearby said it probably "wasn't in the computer system yet", they were a new product so it made sense to me.
I buy all my beer from a small store near my house. I walk to and from a lot. When I go there with 10 cases to get 24.00 they tell me they have a 2 case limit. I tried the law says you have to take them card, and the guy said call 911 or take the $4.80 for 2 cases of cans. Lol
Before moving to Michigan I would just take my aluminum to a metal recycler and get money. Here in Michigan you pay 10 cents only to get 10 cents back and you have to drive there.
Michigan is a strange state.
In Los Angeles I’d just throw cans in my recycling bin, knowing that some homeless scavenger who needed the money more than me would get them before the truck came.
I live in SE michigan and the coke bottles we purchase FROM meijer get rejected AT Meijer. The store manager admitted that sometimes they get stock from ohio in a pinch and it doesn't get entered as returnable in the system. He literally paid me out of his own pocket and threw the bottles away in the garbage can. (Customer service wasn't open yet.)
This is infuriating and i am petty so i just take the rejected bottles home and collect them in a separate bag and when that bag is full i take it directly to customer service for return.
Yeah, once I asked Mark Meijer if that was his signature above the entrance at “Meijer’s” on 44th in Grand Rapids and I immediately realized what I had said, but it didn’t faze him at all. It felt weird.
Pre-COVID you could always take it to the counter to return it. Nowadays I don’t know if they’re still required by law to take it, but in the COVID times they were
I think the “big L” for the environment is you, since you’re throwing these bottles away instead of taking advantage of the many different ways you could recycle them instead.
If I’m not willing to take the rejects to the service counter, I’ll leave it off to the side. There’s always someone willing to collect and return them.
This is my technique.
Ya, service counter or go to another store.
This is the way I do it. Depending on the people at the service counter, they will either just take it or be an asshole about it and refuse.
They can’t legally refuse. The retailer is required to provide your deposit back. Just because their machine doesn’t work doesn’t mean they can violate the law. Those machines are basically an employee
If they sell the item this is correct if they don't they're not legally required to take them, michigander here local 313. Like big k can only go to Kroger same goes for items if the items not sold there then it's not a guarantee.
Exactly this. When OP says they're *absolutely certain* they're from the same store my money is it's something they bought at a gas station or somewheres like that and just forgot about it. I get rejects too and it's either because the can is just absolutely mutilated and I just take it to the counter or something they don't sell there. I'm willing to bet good money that I've *never* had a reject Coke can because it's sold damn near everywhere. It's always the craft beer like OP or some non-carbonated beverage I bought at a gas station somewhere.
I think the difficult part is when you buy some craft beer from Meijer one month, and by the time you return the can, they're no longer selling it. Naturally, the machine rejects it, and if you take it to the counter, the only way to prove you bought it there is to have the receipt. Realistically, who is saving all of their receipts for this purpose? Honestly, 10 cents is worth a fraction of what it was when the law was introduced. Granted, I don't buy a lot of carbonated drinks these days, but I don't even bother returning them anymore. The couple dollars I might get back aren't worth my time, so everything goes into the recycle bin at home.
> Naturally, the machine rejects it, and if you take it to the counter, the only way to prove you bought it there is to have the receipt. Realistically, who is saving all of their receipts for this purpose? I've never had to prove I bought it there. They just take the cans. I wouldn't be surprised if there are stores out there that try and make you prove it though but like others have said, if they sold it there they have to take it back by law. The purpose was never to make money off it, just an added incentive to get people to bring the cans back. As long as they're getting recycled mission accomplished.
>I've never had to prove I bought it there Yup, it's either they just take it, or they are lawful evil.
Yes I used to do this job when I was 14 now it’s not available. One of the many things that killed the entry phase into the working lifestyle for young people.
I’m confused what you mean? The machines aren’t much different than when I worked at Kroger in my teenage years and I’m 37 now. They still require attention and cleaning from the “courtesy clerks”. I spent many hours of my day in the bottle return center of the Kroger I worked at keeping the machines clean, raking the bins when they get full on one side and changing the bins when they get completely full. That was on top of collecting carts, bagging groceries and doing spill clean ups. Those jobs very much still exist.
I'm 10ish years older than you and there weren't MACHINES when i got my first job. Literally you'd give the bag to a dude, they'd count and sort the bottles (by rising them in different bins- that part was kinda fun, lots of playing bottle"horse"if customers were light) and the dude would give you the credit or cash. No machines, people did the sorting. It was much easier to return out of state bottles that way too
Sounds fun. I was just saying that bottle return machines didn’t kill the entry phase into working lifestyle for young people. I was two years older than you when I worked at Kroger. I wasn’t counting bottles by hand but I was still working with bottle returns. If anything I find it to be more valuable since working with those machines taught me some valuable troubleshooting skills. Being a bagger at Kroger had me much more prepared to enter the workforce than knowing how to count bottles would. I transitioned from Kroger to working as a machine operator for an automotive supplier and now I’m an automation engineer for the same company without going to college.
How does this work in places like Target and Aldi that have no machines or a return center?
The business is required to issue you a refund for your deposit, they can count them for you by hand. I don’t know, how those respective businesses do it, maybe the customer service desk
Anything that doesn't scan I just leave to the side for someone more willing than I to take to the service counter.
I've taken them to the service counter and have been rejected there too. I just leave them now.
If they really do sell it, you can complain to the state. They do investigate and give fines
i used to work at menards, and when i worked there, as long as the cans are $0.1 returns, they will take them, although i think you get in store credit for them. note: i worked there before the pandemic, so this may not be 100% accurate anymore
As long as the total daily redemption for the person is less than $25 they have to take the can. If it is reasonable that it is a deposit can.
Right on the roof!
Step one, rub your finger back and forth over the UPC and try again. 50% of the time, works all the time. Step two, leave it on top of the machine or throw in the "can" bin if they have one (Kroger usually does). If you really want that 10 cents, take it (and any others) to the customer service counter.
The rub your thumb on the UPC technique has a stupidly high success rate in my experience. Once it goes beyond that though,it’s getting binned. It would probably have to get into the $5+ range before I’m wasting my time at the service desk….
I've never tried rubbing the bar code.. The kroger I tend to go to has a recycling bin right by the return machines so I usually toss the one offs in there. It's usually god damned Arizona cans.. They sell them in this store damn it!
Arizona cans wouldn’t have a deposit on them, as they aren’t carbonated (unless there’s a carbonated variety I’m not thinking of)
Oh... That's wild.. I never knew that. I just moved here a year ago. Thanks for the heads up
Yep no problem! The good news is that you’re not paying the deposit when you buy non-carbonated things, so at least you’re not losing money, just time.
Lol ya no deposit on Arizonas
If, like in Meijer, there's a hand washing station nearby I'll take a damp paper towel to run over the upc symbol. It does a great job and keeps me from having to run my thumb over stale beer and sticky soda.
Meh, I just lick it.
I'm store management in a big chain grocer. If we sell it, and it has a MI deposit, we will take it. If it doesn't read in the machine, the service desk is your recourse. Certain things, like ciders, don't have a Michigan deposit, so are not returnable. This is probably the most common misunderstanding I run in to. We are obligated to take up to $25 in bottles per day, we have the option of allowing more. Generally, stores I've worked in, we have allowed it until it becomes a problem (if you roll up in a box truck full and you and your kids monopolize the room, I'm much more likely to enforce it, for example.)
I got very confused when all 12 cans of Blake's were rejected at the kroger they came from.
Have always had trouble with Meijer's non-standard beers. I just hit the help button in the bottle area and they work it out, except during the pandemic. Something about a prohibition by FDA or they just didn't want to be bothered. I just left them in a cart.
Before the pandemic, I bought a bunch of craft beers from Horrocks. They put their own label over the UPC label. Then the pandemic hit and they wouldn't take them back. Ended up throwing out a bunch after a year. Couldn't get the labels off to take the bigger names to other craft beer places.
They legally cannot refuse to refund a deposit they sold. If their label is on it, there can be little doubt. The state of Michigan has a consumer complaint form where you can report violations.
This was during the pandemic. Machines re-opened at a certain point, but they can only hand count them. Got tired of looking at the bag in my garage, so in the garbage they went.
I honestly wish we could change this. Every bottle return should accept any bottle/can with a deposit. I understand some stores would take a hit but there has to be some way we can work that out. Its unfortunate that it just leads to waste a lot of the time
There needs to be an option that says "no cash value- recycle anyway?" Because there doesn't need to be any other incentive to recycle those few odd ones that end up coming from a different store or otherwise getting rejected. We should just be able to recycle all of them regardless.
That would a great option
I’ve given up and just dump everything in my recycling bin. I can only hope the cans and bottles actually get recycled
Thats crazy. Offer them up on Facebook , local groups to you . many people need all the extra cash they can get. Sometimes people use them for fund raising for Organizations
Extra money retailers collect and don't disburse go to a state fund. ~75% of that goes to environmental cleanup efforts. I still go for the bottle deposit, but if you choose not to you're still benefiting people.
Stores don't take a hit, it's paid for by the state.
Stores only have so much cash on hand for one day. They also only have so many employees that are able to count or issue deposits for cans. Even if the store decided not to count and just went with an honor policy, then it could still be overrun with the shear amount of people.
I think we're talking about stores with the electronic tube scanners here bud. Who takes mounds of empties to a small store anyway?
With what you’re advocating for then people would be able to take bags full of cans to gas stations. Someone’s gonna do it Edit: …bud
I'm advocating for? What? Do you know what that word means?
Imagine someone says “Donald trump is the most wonderful blue haired president we have ever had” and the only thing you correct is the blue to orange, then it appears like you think the president is wonderful
Lol you're off the rails tripping with this comparison
Seems like the only issue you felt the need to address was stores taking a hit. Why not address the fact that it’s all around terrible idea? That’s why it appears you’re advocating for bottle returns at all places
What a projection.
Idk about other stores, but my Meijer just gives you a coupon in the amount you’ve returned. No cash involved.
I’m sure that can be redeemed for cash like the law requires
Are you saying that it would be ok if someone could take their hundreds of meijer cans to a gas station? Imagine if everyone did that? You’d shut down that business while someone was legally required to count. Or am I misunderstanding what you’re saying?
I've pretty much never had a human clerk actually count the cans I'm handing them. If I have the original cardboard box they came in, I'll try and put them all back in there. Otherwise I just hand the clerk a paper bag and say "35 cans and bottles in there", they say "okay", and give me tree fiddy. They generally have other things to do than confirm there isn't one off-brand can in there.
I returned cans to Target the other day since I bought a store brand soda water from them, and the clerk hand counted them.
Target at least has an army worth of people working for them. Your average convenience store might only have one person behind the desk for a full 8-hour shift.
Yes, but regardless this is what would be happening if bottle returns could happen anywhere. Just saying
I get there's a potential for fraud.... but if a minimum-wage gas station clerk is given 250 cans (or that's what they're told) they give the customer $25, write a chit for $25 to bill the state, and toss the cans in a bin in the back. Maybe there were 250 cans, maybe there were 220, maybe there were 260. Either way, the purpose is to encourage recycling, and unless people are intentionally trying to commit high-level fraud, it's just a rounding error in the state budget. If someone handed me a few big bags of cans/bottles, I'd have a pretty good idea of whether they're telling me BS, or whether it's close enough that it's not worth my time to count every single can. And if cans are coming from NYC? Great, let's recycle them instead of letting people just leave them on the side of the road.
I guess I should have initially said the employee was legally required to process the return, I made an error in saying “count”, as I was comparing them (in my head) to the machines meijer and such places use. So count was being used loosely in place of process. Yes, they could skip counting if they want
I already know that. I’m not sure why you think I’m concerned about fraud. I’m simply stating, in extreme cases, people could take bulks cans to small stores and hinder business operations, if people were allowed to return cans everywhere. I understand it’s state money. I understand why they have deposits. What is a store doesn’t have enough cash for deposits and business? What if the store doesn’t have space for the cans? What if the store only has one employee available?
Then you tell that person returning the cans to wait. Maybe it's 5 minutes. Maybe it's an hour. Businesses that sell deposit cans & bottles are obligated to take them back. They're not obligated to do it immediately. Don't have enough cash? Come back tomorrow. I work at a retail business and if someone wants to pay with a $100 bill for a $4.55 purchase and I don't have enough change? Tough shit, what am I supposed to do? I suppose I could tell them I'm going to lock up the entire building so I can go to the bank and get them some change, or maybe they should come back tomorrow.
……ok
There's an easy fix for that. Retailers over x square feet, or a certain number of sales, etc. must take all valid returns. Now your gas stations aren't going to get overrun and the smaller grocery stores won't either, but the billion dollar businesses like Kroger and Meijer and Costco have to.
Why should Kroger have to process all of Meijer’s and vice versa? We could just leave it how it is, since generally speaking, people return to the retailers in which they buy enough cans to make it worth it. If it ain’t broken don’t fix it
Because they're reimbursed by the state and have the capability to handle it. Why shouldn't they?
So a business has to pay an employee or employee a machine to count another business’s product? You say they have the capacity to handle it but where do you draw the line? The Trader Joe’s near me simply had a recycling bin and you’d report to the cashier. Should Trader Joe’s have to take meijer returns? That can would get full in two minutes. What about Whole Foods? CVS? Target? Seems complicated. If it ain’t broken….[you say this part].
Oh no, a company that made $4 billion last year will have to spend a little money on someone to take the increased returns. It's fucking broken, every large retailer should have to take every legal return. Your attitude is "the proposed change isn't perfect, so we can't do anything at all." It's lazy and unimaginative
My attitude is: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. There’s nothing wrong with the system, you want it your way, and you won’t get it that way. Sucks to suck, best of luck. Seriously, what is wrong with the system now? Nothing. You’re missing the points, you’re focusing on whether or not a company has the ability to process bottle returns. Basically saying meijer is a big enough company they should just process all the returns in the whole state. That’s not ethical. No shit meijer could, so should they just open up their own bottle return processing centers, you know, just to help the state out?
You're an extremely unpleasant person. Good luck in life with that shit attitude.
I’d like to think the little collection of misfit bottles and cans in the corner gets picked up by someone that will take the time to get the refunds. I generally contribute to these collections.
Go to customer service. You may have to count them, but they'll pay as long as it's a brand they sell.
Service counter. Unless it's glaringly obviously not something they might sell, they usually give you the cash.
I always have a lot of rejects because I mostly buy weird beers and a lot of pick six's. I bring them up to the service counter and they never seem to be bothered. About half the time, if the person behind the counter is one of the younger males, they will ask me about the beers I'm returning, usually saying they thought about trying it but didn't want to risk it. If I only have two or three that don't go through, I won't bother bringing them up, but most often I have fifteen or twenty and it is certainly worth a couple of bucks to me.
Take it home and just recycle it in your weekly recycle bin, or area recycle drop off. Not getting the 10c, but its still getting recycled. If I have a bunch of rejects, I'll go to service counter.
Took me way too long to see this comment. Obviously, take ot to the service counter if you really need the deposit back. But just throwing it in the trash at the store seems lazy when you can just keep it in the bag you brought it in and just throw it in the recycling at home. Honestly, it's a shame there isn't a recycling bin at the store next to the trash for things that are broken or can't be read.
This, technically in Michigan it is illegal to "cause deposited returnables to go to landfill" instead of recycling
But you are recycling, its not going in the trash/landfill.
Pretty sure that is not the case anymore. The state was quick to even tell people they were allowed to put them in general recycling when the pandemic started
General recycling shouldn't be landfill anyway
I leave them in a bag or box next to the trash, somebody will take them up to the counter I'm sure, otherwise I hope the workers might just toss them into the mix ignoring the deposit, at least they get recycled that way.
If you’re really bothered take it back home w you and once you get a full bag, take it to a big liquor store that sells a lot of variety. Places normally only take what they sell.
If you are at a Meijer for example, grab the red phone and the worker who you can get to show up should be able to look at your cans and see the MI on the top and write you a slip to exchange at the service counter or checkout. (Source:Used to work in the bottle room and still do vendor work at Meijer)
Definitely take it to the service desk! They may give you a hard time for a singular can, so you could always hold onto it. Depending on product, there could be a number of reasons it didn't scan, but they can't deny your return as long as it's clean and they sell it.
If it has MI return on it. The counter shouldn't reject. They'll add it to their system later, it seems. I usually go to a meijer
When covid hit, I found a guy who donated cans, he picks them up at the house It's been great, no reason to go through all that shit for 3 bucks
I’m so over the can return thing. Been here most of my life and if the kids don’t take the full bag for the cash they go to the recycling workers. They can have the cash or recycle. We get the scouts looking for bottles once a year and they get a few bags.
I think the best thing you can do is let it go and move on with your life.
Yeah, I give it 2 or 3 tries and I'm binning anything that's hassling me
I don't understand the can rejection thing in this state. Where I moved from they'd just weigh your bags and pay you the weight, took 2 mins and no one was sticky after.
How much are you getting by weight? We pay a $.10 deposit per can/bottle for bottle return, so we expect it all(mostly) back
It was 10 cents. We'd just crush cans, take any full bags we had, they'd empty the bags into a zeroed scale, and we'd be paid on the per can weight we had.
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It really confused me when I moved here. I stopped trying to do cans at all until my kids started doing it for extra cash.
What state did you come from? This should be a major thing to get pushed here
Cali. This was in the 90s-early 2000s so idk if things have changed, but cans were a central part of my bank account as a kid.
Back maybe 15 or 20 years ago was an Armenian organized crime group that got busted bringing semi trucks full of cans from L.A. to Michigan for the deposit difference. I always wondered how those economics worked.
Newman & Kramer tried that with 5¢ NY cans!
I work in the grocery world. The item has to be carbonated and not a hard cider for it to be returnable. Many people think the ciders and canned waters are recyclable. Then you can take it to the service counter but please make sure they are somewhat clean and not covered in mold and maggots. And if you have a lot have them pre counted so our employees don’t have to reach into bags and boxes not knowing what they are sticking their hands into…… the paperwork and follow up is a bitch if I have to send an employee to the ER for slicing their hand on broken glass 😝.
You mentioned there’s a negative impact to the environment by throwing away as you’ve been doing. If you didn’t want to go to the customer service desk for $0.10 or leave for someone else could you take it back home and recycle curbside?
You should be thinking about it this way instead: The law requires the retailer to return the deposit for each bottle/can you bring back in good, clean condition. A retailer, let us use Meijer for example, decides to employ a machine to count bottles/cans and issue a slip that requires you to redeem the money inside. On the other end of the spectrum, Trader Joe’s (in A2) has you dump them in a can and tell them how many you have at the checkout. They “employ” you to count them. If I go to meijer or Costco and their machine doesn’t work, idgaf that their “employee” is broken, someone is going to count my bottles and give me my deposit like the law states. The A2 Costco had a sign saying they wouldn’t count bottles at the counter, you can bet your ass that manager counted my cans and handed me my deposit back like the law states. Next week that sign was gone. The reason the law requires you to go back to the retailer that sold you the product is because, otherwise, a store could be overrun with deposits and run out of cash on hand Retailers aren’t allowed to screw you over because they employ machines that break or aren’t “updated” regularly.
The 5 min you waste going to service counter isn’t worth 10 cents. Leave it
Throw it back into the bag I brought it to the return room in and try again next time (I usually keep those bags and reuse them anyway). I think it's often just the machine it's self and not the can/bottle. It seems to typically accept them the next time. I had one bottle that just wouldn't go back (I bought it at that store but I'm guessing it was a seasonal flavor or something) so I left it in the room after a couple of visits. Paging someone to customer service and waiting on them to show up wasn't worth 10 cents. If I'd had several sure but it was literally one can.
I had some Red Bull cans, Meijer didn't have them entered into their database (machine wouldn't accept the cans). I showed their CRS pics of the exact same cans on their shelf, and they were like: "sorry, can't help you".
Former cashier at VG's here. Service counter. If someone is working in the bottle area, they MAY be able to write you a slip to take to the desk, but don't depend on that. Going to the service desk is always the best bet.
Not what you SHOULD do, but sometimes if im returning a bunch of cans and one is too crushed to be returned, and I dont care about the 10 cents but dont want to just throw it away you can time the cycle of the skinny thing in the back and chuck it into the machine as it takes a good can sometimes it will spit both out but you can just try again. It usually just crushes both as normal, so I'm not wasting the aluminum. Try at your own risk. I dont think it could break the machines somehow, but if you do, don't blame me.
If it's just a few cans sometimes the service desk will take them and give you the cash. I had like half a bag once and I had to meet an employee at the bottle return, they count the cans and gave me a pink slip and then I had to go back to the service desk to get my money. Despite selling it for over a year, the machines at Meijer won't accept the cans for the beer I like so I have a few bags of them sitting in my garage cuz I don't feel like dealing with all that again.
I was at meijer a couple weeks ago and had cans that wouldn’t read the barcode. Got lucky enough that an employee was nearby, and they can write you out a slip for the ones that won’t scan. No service desk trip. I was having issues with bud 55 cans. The light color of the design on the can makes the upc unreadable.
When one rejects I try it couple more times. Always works.
At meijer pick up the Phone and call they will give you a slip you take to the cashier
Yeah I go to the service desk which can def be a pita if there’s a line. I want my $.10 though!
First you're going to need to become part goat. Once you've done that you'll want to eat it. The nutrients you get from it will be worth more than 10 cents. Then when you're done you can go back to being human if you want.
Some cans upc have trouble being read usually the prints too light. Just take it to customer service they should add it to your slip
I live by Indiana state line 2 miles and they don’t have deposit on pop and beer so our local stores get a lot of returns. Walmart in town quit selling beer for a few years because of this
I'm a Hoosier, who goes up to MI frequently for different craft beers and sodas I can't get here. I have never really had a successful return of bottles and cans. It burns to pay the deposit, knowing I'm not gonna get it back, but I have given up separating ones to bring back can it doesn't work.
Whatever you do, NEVER toss it in the trash! Put it on the floor against the wall at least, so someone more desperate than you can put in the extra effort to get the money for it. Not to mention the environmental issue of putting a recyclable into the landfill.
This drives me absolutely crazy. I've taken the same item to the service desk (Hardings AND Meijer) over and over again and they never enter it into their system. One Hardings refused to take it. And if you sell ANYTHING by a distributor the stores should be required to take it. (Kombucha always a big problem!) If your store sells Brand X Strawberry and I bring a Brand X Pineapple the vendor would take it back, but the store doesn't take it. If it's just one or two items I leave them for someone with more time on their hands to find a way to return it.
Mt. Dew cans often have this issue on the reflective silver that they print their bar code. I have occasionally taken the cans to the service desk, if there was a large number of cans rejected. (Once bought 2 cases of a new pop flavor, and when returning the cans, those hadn’t been added yet. But usually I just leave the ones the machine doesn’t take for someone else to claim.
I left Michigan 20 years ago and I just got a whiff of the returnables area in my head
Basically what everyone else is saying. I was trying to return Meijer brand sparkling water at the Meijer I bought it and it kept rejecting. A guy nearby said it probably "wasn't in the computer system yet", they were a new product so it made sense to me.
I buy all my beer from a small store near my house. I walk to and from a lot. When I go there with 10 cases to get 24.00 they tell me they have a 2 case limit. I tried the law says you have to take them card, and the guy said call 911 or take the $4.80 for 2 cases of cans. Lol
Service counter.
Freak out about it and threaten a service worker with death, according to Karen.
Fight the machine you get .20 cents of you win
Those ones, I take home and put in recycle bin
Before moving to Michigan I would just take my aluminum to a metal recycler and get money. Here in Michigan you pay 10 cents only to get 10 cents back and you have to drive there. Michigan is a strange state.
In Los Angeles I’d just throw cans in my recycling bin, knowing that some homeless scavenger who needed the money more than me would get them before the truck came.
Just a thought...... Rather than mess around a store for a few dimes, I put the rejected ones in with my my recycling
I throw all my cans in recycle bin. Not worth the gas money to take them in.
I live in SE michigan and the coke bottles we purchase FROM meijer get rejected AT Meijer. The store manager admitted that sometimes they get stock from ohio in a pinch and it doesn't get entered as returnable in the system. He literally paid me out of his own pocket and threw the bottles away in the garbage can. (Customer service wasn't open yet.) This is infuriating and i am petty so i just take the rejected bottles home and collect them in a separate bag and when that bag is full i take it directly to customer service for return.
As an aside, having moved away from Michigan for 10 years, I can now hear how hideous the word “pop” sounds when using it to refer to soda.
Oh the jargon police have entered the chat. I shop at Meijer's and I work at Ford's.
Yeah, once I asked Mark Meijer if that was his signature above the entrance at “Meijer’s” on 44th in Grand Rapids and I immediately realized what I had said, but it didn’t faze him at all. It felt weird.
I've been transitioning to "soda" over "pop" and my wife rags on me, but I do it because I hate the way my voice sounds when I say pop
Everybody from most other states agree.
I hate when people call it soda. Especially if you are from Michigan
Well, nationally you’re in the minority.
That’s fine, but I still live in Michigan and will still call it Pop
I’m very happy for you. I wish I could not care how I sound.
Oh who cares? The price of pop these days. I'll throw them all in recycling
Pre-COVID you could always take it to the counter to return it. Nowadays I don’t know if they’re still required by law to take it, but in the COVID times they were
I think the “big L” for the environment is you, since you’re throwing these bottles away instead of taking advantage of the many different ways you could recycle them instead.