The predominant supermarket chain in Michigan is “Meijer” and like everything else in the US, it’s huge. It sells everything from fresh fruit and vegetables, from meat to milk and everything in between plus fishing rods, car oil, clothing, garden plants and furniture, to name a few items!

Attached to the shop is a bottle return. Here, registered shoppers deposit plastic bottles, fizzy drink cans or wine/beer bottles for recycling. One by one, the shopper places their items in the respective shoot. The machine takes the item and as long as it is a product sold in the shop, the item continues downwards being crushed as it goes. When shoppers have completed their recycling they receive a receipt for the items they have recycled which is redeemable at the checkout. Isn’t that just so cool?

In 1978, Michigan became the first big industrialized state to implement a deposit law for bottles and cans. The ten-cent deposit was meant to keep the containers from going to landfills or rolling along the streets.

Retailers charge a ten cent deposit on every beer, soft drink, carbonated & mineral water container as an incentive for consumers to recycle. Grocery stores that sell those items are required to pay back that ten cent deposit when those containers are returned for recycling. Michigan has one of the highest deposits in the country.