Michiganders: Do your Can and Bottle Deposit laws help?

I'm here in Illinois in a bad neighborhood and with all the trash I see I wish we had that law here.

It made a huge difference. The roads and highways are a lot cleaner. Of course, the bottlers spent about 50 times more money than the recyclers to try to prevent the bottle law from being enacted. We visited a friend in Chi. and I couln't believe all the beer bottles we threw in the trash. At our jazz festival, I've seen street people actually waiting for you to finish your beer so they can get the bottle for the dime.

I hate that term Michigander!

Thanks for the info.

"Mi-shit-ians":evilgrin:

It was Michigander when I live there 20 odd years ago.

I never heard Michiganian until a few years ago, it was always Michigander.

...though I prefer Michigander.

Michigander is what we still call ourselves over here on the eastern side of the state. In fact there is quite a discussion about it. The farther right paper here in Detroit(News) calls us Michiganians, and the farther left (FreePress) still calls us Michiganders. I will stay with the left
:evilgrin:
And the bottle law rules!!!!!

If the News uses the term Michiganian, then I'm now officially a Michigander! Thanks. Actually the term goes back over a hundred years. has to do with the name of a political party or something. I'll have to do some digging for an historical explaination.

I take my aluminum cans and just set them next to my dumpster because I know the street people will collect them. Lazy way to be green..lol

You don't really appreciate it until you travel to a state that doesn't have such a law. I'm not sure if it has changed, but FLA. is/was a perfect example. Oh, and I like Michigander better than Michiganian.

Jay

You can drive down the freeway and know when you get into Ohio or Indiana just by the increased amount of bottles and cans by the side of the road.

We have a great bill in Iowa and it works very well. Of course, the supermarkets who collect most of the soda cans are donating to repubs who will try to kill the bill in the next legislative session.

I spent three years in Michigan and was VERY impressed by how well the system worked. It is extrememly convenient to return the bottles and cans, with automatic machinese to count and crush them in all major supermarkets. And it seems the costs for maintaining the system are applied very appropriately where they belong: with those who sell the bottles. No one is required to participate -- there is just enough of a financial incentive to do so that people will be more aware of their actions. I think it should be held up as an ideal of how the government can encourage ecological behavior in a non-intrusive way and without an expensive regulatory structure.

It's two cents in New York and when we were staying with friends they just threw everything out. "You gonna lug those down to the store for 2 cents?" seemed to be the prevailing attitude there.

Adding 60 cents to the price of a six pack is small enough that it won't keep anybody from buying it in the first place, but when enough that you'll think twice before you toss them out.

The only problem -- it's harder to get your friends to give you their empty bottles for homebrewing. :(

we used to pick up bottles and cans when we'd go walking with our kids. the treat was to find a MI bottle or can worth 5 or 10 cents. then to cash them in we'd drive (5 miles) over the state line into MI, and notice how few bottles and cans lined the roads.

sure wish we had a similar law in Arizona. . . . . .sheesh! you talk about trashed roadsides!

The difference between a nickel and a dime may not mean much to us, but to a child it's huge! Plus you're instilling good habits in theme. Kudos to you!

It's amazing how easy it is to see -- now, from a huge distance -- how easily people fall into believing what they're expected to believe.

We took our kids for walks in the woods and along the roads in Indiana all the time when they were little, 25 yrs. ago. We lived a very modest but comfortable rural lifestyle. We recycled like crazy, consumed responsible, even built a passive solar/earth-sheltered house. Gardened and composted and all that cool stuff.

And we voted straight ticket Republican and saw no conflict between the way we lived and the way we voted. Because hubby and I had been raised as Repukes :-) and didn't know any better.

What brought us to sanity? I'm not sure. Maybe the farm crisis and S&L failures of the 80s and early 90s, when we saw how the policies of the GOP were out and out lies, how they were doing nothing but screwing the working person and favoring the idle rich.

I don't miss Indiana. I don't miss the mosquitoes and snow and ice and humidity. We moved to Arizona in the 80s and love it -- even if the roadsides are dumps and no one seems to care very much. We don't have an earth-sheltered house (:::sigh::::, I still miss it) but we still live a pretty green lifestyle, still recycle, still try to be as gentle on the planet as we can, given the 21st century.

But I do kinda miss those walks in the woods. . . . .

Ah, well, winter is coming soon and it'll be "cold" enough to trek out into the desert without much risk of running into a sunning rattler. No 10-cent MI bottles to pick up, but there are other rewards.

Point of this post -- spend time with your kids, teach them by example, talk things out with them even when they're little, and never underestimate the value of a dime. And teach the repukes by example, too. Don't give up on them. Hubby has been working for three months on a fellow worker and the guy is starting to turn. . . . it just takes patience.

When so few people think their political decisions have an impact on their day-to-day, it's not surprising that some vote out of habit. I would never give up on a Republican, or I'd have disowned half my family by now. They also all believe in protecting the environment, but somehow that doesn't translate into their political beliefs. I'm from a military family, so this might just be the year I convince them the Republican party doesn't actually have their best interests in mind.

We've had one since the early seventies, and no one here questions it, not even our wacky radical right types. Makes a huge difference. Wish it would be expanded to include juice bottles and such.

since then it takes on an sense of "nonessentials." Of course, since you're from Oregon should that be "beer and pop" instead?

I do believe we were the first, Yeaaaaa!

Harrad.