Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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recycling lottery

A real incentive to recycle bottles and cans: megabucks!
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Sure that 5 cents per bottle or can adds up, but the incentive hasn't budged in forty years. Suppose those machines at the grocery store would now and then make a BIG payout, maybe a large multiple of the base ticket. This would probably cause a dramatic reduction of roadside litter, especially if water bottles and energy drink cans were included.
molecat, May 08 2009

Irn Bru is classically sold in glass bottles http://www.irn-bru.co.uk/our-drinks.html
[Jinbish, May 08 2009]

And other A.G.Barr soft drinks too... http://www.agbarr.c..._range!opendocument
There is a 20p deposit available for each of these bottles upon return to a vendor in the UK. [Jinbish, May 08 2009]

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       Nice idea - maybe a crisp, new $10 bill for every 200th bottle. How do these machines work though? How do they ensure people aren't just chucking all sorts of rubbish in to get the refund money?
hippo, May 08 2009
  

       The machines usually check quite thouroughly that the bottle/can is applicable - dents sometimes throw it off, and a bottle that has the same general outline, but slightly different surface is rejected too.
loonquawl, May 08 2009
  

       It's a barcode scanner in the machine. It checks the barcode against products the store sells. With new products you sometimes run into a situation where it hasn't been reprogrammed yet.
MechE, May 08 2009
  

       I've not seen such a machine before - we haven't had deposit bottles in the UK for years, sadly. But it has me wondering if I could tag the things I put in the recycling bins to potentially win a prize as one can/bottle/newspaper etc is randomly selected at the recycling plant. [+]
Srimech, May 08 2009
  

       We do have deposit bottles in the UK. Just got to know where we keep 'em!
Jinbish, May 08 2009
  


 

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