JACKSON, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – When customers return approved recyclables, they get back their 10 cent deposit – grocery stores often get more than they bargained for.

Some have gotten bottles returned with hazardous materials such as cigarettes, chewing tobacco, gasoline, urine, and even used condoms according to shop owners. 

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President of the Jackson based Polly’s Country Market, Sean Kennedy, a chain of grocery stores, revealed that one time they got methamphetamine which resulted in a fire within the bottle counting machine which resulted in a Polly’s store shutting down according to the Detroit News.  More commonly, often daily hazards include broken glass from beer bottles and saliva, plus all of the germs human spit can potentially bring into a place that sells fresh food, Kennedy said.  

The Michigan Department of Treasury showed that in 2021, 25% of beverage containers which qualify for the dime deposit law ended up in general recycling, a landfill, a roadside ditch or are still in bags in the garage.  Ten years ago, 95% of bottles were returned for change.  

“That whole system is broken,” President and CEO of the Michigan Environmental Council, Conan Smith, said, “The thing is just a hot mess.”

Opponents of the dime deposit system created in 1976, which would be worth 54 cents in today’s dollars, have long argued that Michigan should adopt a universal curbside recycling and abolish the dime deposit system. 

“This deposit law is getting a little long in the tooth here,” President and CEO of the Michigan Soft Drink Association, Derek Bajema said, “It was an anti-litter campaign. Recycling wasn’t even in our lexicon in 1976.” 

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Stores receive 25% of the unclaimed deposits to compensate for their labor, recycling machines, and frequent maintenance.  Another Polly’s Country Market store revealed that employees had to mop under the bottle machines to prevent a build up of soda syrup and beer scrum.  The remaining 75% of unclaimed deposits, called escheats, go to a state program meant for cleaning up polluted and contaminated sites. 

The result of the Pandemic hold on bottle returns, meant the environmental department fund has received $157 million from all the unredeemed bottle and can deposits, said the Detroit News. 

With a new legislature, among other priorities,  State Senator Sean McCann (D) Kalamazoo has said he plans to reintroduce legislation next year to add water bottles to the deposit law.  Doing so would mean altering or repealing a 46 year old law, but McCann sees the program as a positive. 

“It still blows any kind of curbside recycling participation percentage,” McCann said, “It’s extraordinarily successful even though it’s not as successful as it once was.”

A 2021 TOMRA report indicates that Michigan was in fact a leader in returning bottles among the 10 other states with bottle bill laws.  In 2019, the state had an 89% return rate, and was one of three states to offer 10 cents back, the others were predominantly 5 cents for returns with some making 15 cent exceptions for liquor.