The Time Capsule | Roy Marshall

At a town hall meeting a while back Sen. Shipley, a gentleman and a fine fellow, said the redemption law needs some improvement. He didn’t go into just what those improvements might be, but I wish they’d either get on with it or take a close look at alternatives.       

As a one-time resident of the state of Texas, which doesn’t have a deposit law, it seems to me there’s no more trash in their road ditches than ours. Slobs are slobs, a nickel or dime doesn’t deter them, and the hassle of redemption is such that it may be doomed.     

Not long ago I drove a farm tractor from a location near Viking Lake to a point two miles to the west. I tend to be a compulsive counter. From the slow-moving tractor I counted 57 beverage cans, mostly of the beer variety. There were 16 glass bottles and several plastic ones. I also noted two milk jugs, a child’s plastic swimming pool, three disposable diapers, two old tires, three large black garbage bags stuffed with something, five paper sacks from fast food places, a broken Styrofoam cooler, a shirt or blouse, two plastic motor oil containers, an assortment of paper cups and plates, a couple of juice cartons and an economy size Pepto-Bismol bottle.

Later I walked a mile on one side and returned on the other, finding more than I’d initially seen; enough to fill one and one half of the giant Red Oak Tiger heavy duty leaf bags. In my garage I sorted the reasonably clean cans and bottles into one container, landfill trash went to another. A few days later I arrived at the Red Oak redemption center. A lady carrying a couple of boxes of cans went through the front door. I followed. An employee asked if I had an appointment. It was midafternoon on a weekday; I’d not previously been there, had no idea an appointment was needed. I was directed, by a person lacking a friendly smile, to come back another time. 

A couple of weeks later I did so, arriving on a day when an appointment was not required. My bag was rejected, though, because the cans had to be separated from the bottles. I was glad to do that. On the customer side of the counter was a grocery cart. I put the stuff in it and began to sort. I was told by the employee (still lacking a friendly smile) that I could not sort there, nor could I use the cart. I was directed to go do my sorting elsewhere.     

I suppose the cart is for some other purpose and customer service is what it is because redemption centers deal with a huge mess for very little reward. I understand. I wouldn’t want to do it either. I was, however, tired of the rattling in my trunk and thought of the automated system I’d seen at Wal-Mart in Atlantic. I wondered how it worked. 38.6 miles later I gave it a try. Three of the first five cans were rejected. Each was clean, undented until the machine spit it out, and marked for deposit in Iowa. I tried running them through again. A lady next to me was having trouble with bottles. She saw a Wal-Mart associate passing by and asked for his help. He decided her machine was full or jammed; he couldn’t fix it but would find someone. By that time I had a cart filling up with rejected cans. He said this was because Wal-Mart didn’t handle some off-brands.   I pointed out that most of them were Budweiser. He said he didn’t know about that, then issued a warning. Take the rejected cans with me. Do not put them in the nearby trash receptacle. 

38.6 miles later I made a Lions Club donation, doing so in a friendly environment and without an appointment or rejection. From now on I’ll let them deal with the redemption system. 

Roy Marshall is a local historian and columnist for the Red Oak Express. He can be contacted at news@redoakexpress.com.