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Can someone translate this?


Alpo

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This is on the side of a plastic soda pop bottle.


IA - MA 5¢.  

HI - CT-ME - NY-VT 5¢

OR - MI 10¢

CA CASH REFUND

 

 

The first line says Iowa and Massachusetts have a 5-cent refund on the bottle.

 

The next line says Hawaii, Connecticut, Maine, New York, and Vermont also have a five-cent refund.

 

The third line says that Oregon and Mississippi will give me 10 cents for the bottle.

 

If the last line that has me puzzled. California cash refund??? What the heck does that mean? I mean hell, I take that empty bottle into a store in Jackson Mississippi, and he's going to give me a dime. He's not going to give me a check for $0.10, or put it on my Discover card. He's going to give me a cash refund. Ain't he?

 

Seems like every day, more and more, California does something that confuses me.

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Don’t know the answer but it reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where Kramer and Newman try to us a US Mail truck to pull off the Michigan recycling scam by hauling cans and bottles there to double their value. Hilarious. 
 

Seamus

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Sounds like Joe Biden Jebbern in writing :lol::D:P

 

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The answer is not Cash Refund.

These are recycling charges added to each can in those states.

 

CA also has a charge for recycling but they also will pay you a fee to take to a recycling center.

However, the refund is less than the fee at the store charged for recycling.

-------------------

For each can you are charged a recycling charge of, say $.05 each can.

Take to recycling center and you get a per pound fee which is about $0.35 today.

Problem is, you paid $.05 each and it take 24 cans to make a pound.

You paid a recycling fee of $1.20 for 24 cans.

You get back $0.35 for your trouble.

Others make $0.85 on your pound of cans.

 

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Another case of the citizens of California being snookered.  I remember it well....

 

Touted as "a major anti-litter bill that would establish a refundable beer and soft-drink container recycling program," The California Beverage Container Recycling and Litter Reduction Act of 1986 was passed with the assurance that the "deposit" would be recoverable; convenient location were to be established everywhere, don'tcha know.

 

Of course, after the thing passed, why... this just wouldn't be practical at all! 

 

But no problem!  Folks can just "cash in them bottles and cans at recycling centers!"  Problem solved!  

 

So, lessee... 32 aluminum cans weigh one pound.  At a nickel per (5¢ for containers under 24 ounces; 10¢ for containers over), that's a buck sixty paid.  Recovery at a recycling center?  About fifty cents.  :angry:

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Growing up, the corner store would give you a nickel for a returnable bottle.  Then plastics came out and some bottles came with just a few states on the side.  The ten states on that bottle have redemption laws that encourage recycling.

The CA 'cash refund' (unless things have changed) varies by container size

 

The label on the side of that soda bottle is one of the few tangibles left to remind people that we don't all live in the "same" USA.  Most of us just assume that the laws are generally the same everywhere. 

 

 

 

 

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I don't know about the rest of the country, but the post office abbreviations annoy the hell out of me. I live in Fla, not FL. I miss the time when you didn't have to guess whether MI was Miss or Mich.

 

Do y'all out there on the West Coast wish you still lived in Calif, or Ore, or Wash?

 

Is AZ anywhere near Ariz?

 

Why do they even need an abbreviation for Ohio or Iowa? There's only four damn letters. Many abbreviations were that many. Okla. Ariz. Miss.

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19 minutes ago, Alpo said:

I don't know about the rest of the country, but the post office abbreviations annoy the hell out of me. I live in Fla, not FL. I miss the time when you didn't have to guess whether MI was Miss or Mich.

 

Do y'all out there on the West Coast wish you still lived in Calif, or Ore, or Wash?

 

Is AZ anywhere near Ariz?

 

Why do they even need an abbreviation for Ohio or Iowa? There's only four damn letters. Many abbreviations were that many. Okla. Ariz. Miss.

 

You make some pretty good points.  This 'two letter' system of abbreviations is pretty binary for a country as woke as 2021-USA

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5 hours ago, Alpo said:

I don't know about the rest of the country, but the post office abbreviations annoy the hell out of me. I live in Fla, not FL. I miss the time when you didn't have to guess whether MI was Miss or Mich.

 

Do y'all out there on the West Coast wish you still lived in Calif, or Ore, or Wash?

 

Is AZ anywhere near Ariz?

 

Why do they even need an abbreviation for Ohio or Iowa? There's only four damn letters. Many abbreviations were that many. Okla. Ariz. Miss.

Wow! When did they change the abbreviations? It was decades ago if I recall. 

Yeah I checked. 1963. And you’re still annoyed?? :lol::lol:
 

I know that some folks from Boston still say Boston MASS. Like mass was an actual word. Ever hear anybody say they were from Miami Fla and pronounce FLa? Me neither. Not them Mass folks are cut from a different bolt of cloth for sure. :rolleyes:

Chicken Paaaam.

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dont turn in the wrong ones in iowa they reject them no matter what the label says , i bet CA does give you an IOU - maybe you can use it when purchasing the next bottle ? or maybe they just charge you for both 

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so my sister told me - after trying to return minnesotta cans and bottles by accident once after her vacation here , so we no longer recycle mine when i visit there - kinda defeats the purpose in my mind but hey , politian's wrote the laws right ? seems to keep most of the litter off the highways tho 

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