It was amazing being a kid back then because you could earn some decent coin returning bottles

there are still people today who roam neighborhoods collecting bottles and cans

My neighborhood recycling occurs on Thursday night, so I take all my empty cans and put them in a clear plastic back and put them next to my trash. I do not think that the garbage people have ever gotten the cans; there is always a homeless person that will walk around and pick up the bag of empties, presumably to redeem them somewhere.

I don’t have an issue with it, if they want to do what I am too lazy to do, more power to them.

Nowadays the homeless or other less-than-living-wage earners do that for us. You can see them everywhere in cities all over north america and europe if you pay attention.

As European that is not spread everywhere, while you can get some money back in Germany and Greece, there is none to be had in Portugal.

In Germany, it is such a big issue with people not having other source of income, that there is a culture where and how to leave the bottles around so that they are easier to collect.

I kinda prefer cultures where benefits and pensions are enough so that people don't have to dig into trashcans for Pfand.

It is getting hard across many countries.

Listen, we can hold Big Plastic accountable and also not throw trash out of our cars, I think.

What’s something we have managed to do this with?

Maybe the process could be emulated.

To play devils advocate I'm old enough to remember when glass bottles and cans were what was around and there are a number of problems there that manufactures would fight...

Glass is heavy as shit. For as much plastic waste as we create, we've saved a ton in fuel costs that would be in the atmosphere otherwise.

Glass likes to break and become a dangerous object/weapon. How much less glass litter is around is amazing. Always fun when you went to the lake, then the hospital because some dipshit broke their coke. It still can happen with liquor, but it's massively reduced the problem.

Also, glass likes to break and cause product inventory shrinkage, which the manufactures and retailers hate.

Same with bulk goods. Never underestimate how fucking dumb your fellow citizens are in their ability to screw up and ruin bulk product displays.

Also, when something in bulk is polluted/one piece goes bad, typically the entire container is a loss.

What we have to force manufactures to do is use plastics that are recyclable and put deposits on them. And then force recycling on the items they collect. This would massively reduce waste by incentivizing the public to gather any they see.