Recycling incentive

Here in NY we have a bottle deposit on certain bottles (caffeinated beverages and beer basically) that means you get charged 5 cents per bottle when you buy the product, which can be redeemed when you take it back. You can also make some money by collecting bottles on the sides of the road (or canal in my case). Some groups, like the cub scouts and the local college rugby team, use this as a fund raiser. I think this is great - I took in a bunch of bottles yesterday and made $4.55. Yes, some of those cents were ones I already spent, but a good proportion was stuff we collected. And yes, that isn't much money, but it certainly feels like money out of nothing - I hardly had to do any work to get it - just pick up bottles that I would probably pick up anyway.

The shame is that bottles of water, sports drinks, and tea are not redeemable. Apparently they were fairly rare when the law was enacted here, but are now sold in epidemic proportions. I think there is a bill going through the State House to get them included. I hope it works. Also, I have read some commentary that the deposit should be raised to 25 cents a bottle to help encourage recycling. I'd be for that - if it included water, it might also help cut down on the amount that people buy. I mean, tap water is basically free, and is usually better tested than bottled water. And it doesn't produce lots of trash.