Michigan’s Midwest Independent Retailers Association is urging a two-year phaseout of the current store-based bottle and can return system while the state develops a replacement. It cites sanitation concerns and retailers’ labor, equipment and storage costs.
MIRA says possible alternatives include standalone recycling centers or curbside programs that separate returns from grocery stores. Michigan voters approved a 10-cent deposit on eligible beverage containers in a 1976 referendum, and retailers are required to accept returns under the current system.
MIRA says used containers brought into stores may have been stored in garages, left outdoors, collected from roadsides or retrieved from garbage cans, raising hygiene and food-safety concerns. Some shoppers are increasingly putting deposit containers in curbside recycling when they decide a store return is not worth the effort.
