How to Return Your Soda Bottles
Recycling is not only good for the environment, it can add a few dollars to your budget every month. In many states, retailers collect a deposit on every soda bottle and can. By taking your soda bottles to a recycling plant, you collect the deposit refund. While a nickel a bottle may not sound like a lot, it adds up quickly. Consider that you may drink several bottles of soda or water every day. You may be throwing away a dollar or more every day on bottle deposits. Fortunately, recycling soda bottles is easy. Does this Spark an idea?
Instructions
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Organize a recycling area in your home. A trash bin outside the kitchen door, a tall kitchen wastebasket or a simple mesh laundry bag on a hook all serve as efficient containers for your soda bottles. You need one container per type of recyclable---plastic, aluminum and glass.
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Rinse all recyclables before putting them in your recycling containers. This discourages ants, rodents and other vermin.
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Bag all your recyclables and take them to a local recycling center. Depending on where you live, a recycling center may be found in a shopping center parking lot, a warehouse or outside the city in an industrial area---or consult websites such as Earth911.com to locate recycling centers near you.
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Put your recyclables in the curbside bin. In some locations, it is not cost effective to do your own recycling due to distance and the cost of gas. If your city or town provides recycle bins, your soda bottles will be picked up at the curb on trash day.
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Tips & Warnings
If your children are not cooperative, offer to split the money if they help you sort the recyclables; money is very motivating.
If your recycling plant does not require removal of the plastic caps, leave them on the bottles. While only a fraction of an ounce, they add up to a significant amount over a month or year.
Take your driver's license or state identification to the recycling plant. Many locations require state residency icollect the deposits.
Some recyclers take other items, like electronics, steel food cans and paper.
Reusable items can be given to charities or organizations such as Freecycle.com.
Wear gloves. Squashed plastic, chipped glass and aluminum cans may have sharp edges.
References
Resources
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