Fifty stores reject bottles despite law

Fifty stores reject bottles despite law

This one's sure to heat up next session:

The Ames Fareway is also among those that have stopped taking empty containers. Sen. Herman Quirmbach, an Ames Democrat, criticized the timing of the change. The holiday season brings a larger number of parties and entertaining, and a larger number of empty beverage containers.

"Basically, what Fareway and Hy-Vee are doing is raising people's property taxes," Quirmbach said. "Without convenient places to return bottles, some fraction will be thrown away as litter."

Today's Register article doesn't address the money subtext like the last one did. The grocery lobby wants a raise and is playing hardball to get it.

Which reminds me of last week's Onion:

A bipartisan Congressional initiative passed Monday promises that relief, in the form of a national, 12-cent bottle-and-can refund, will soon come to the nation's estimated 600,000 homeless.

"For homeless can-collectors in my home state of Michigan, the plan represents a 20-percent raise," Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI) said. "For those in states like California, New York, and Iowa, it represents a whopping 140 percent wage increase. Everyone wins: The homeless enjoy a higher standard of living, and we taxpayers enjoy cleaner streets, free of cans and bottles!"

Which is extra funny to me since Camp is from my brother's home of Midland, MI. Maybe I should send my cans back to Michigan with Brian and get the dime instead of the nickel! Wonder if Hy-Vee could try that on a large scale?