What happens when you return bottles in Michigan?

Michigan’s dime deposit program is almost 50 years old and is always in the news because of efforts to expand or repeal it. But, do you know what happens to that plastic and aluminum when you take it back to a retailer?

Frederick Lawrence is a logistics faculty in CMU’s College of Business Administration and is the director of internships for the logistics management program. He answers questions about what happens behind the scenes.

Q. What do retailers do with bottles and cans after people return them?

Retailers take action based on their size, resources and capabilities. Generally, retailers collect cans, separate them by brand and store them in anticipation of pickup by distributors or third-party recyclers.

Larger retailers, like supercenters, commonly have reverse vending machine