Can/Bottle Refund in Iowa?

Question

I recently moved to Iowa and finally have a bag of cans and bottles to turn in to get my deposit back. I know that I have been charged 5 cents for each on all of my grocery bills. Where do I go and what do I have to do to get the money back? Do I have to have them washed out? Am I supposed to have the cans crushed or uncrushed?

If it helps, I am in the Des Moines area. Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Wash them out and don't crush them, then just take them to Hy-Vee (dunno if other places have them though, but who knows).  There should be an area someplace outside with collection machines.  You then just start feeding the cans and bottles into those, and when done it gives you a receipt (last time I did it anyway, but that was years ago), then you take that inside to get your refund.

Answer 2

You might want to check the yellow pages for recycling places, or perhaps you can take them back to the market where you buy your groceries.

In California the markets also accept the bottles/cans sand pay you back what you paid.

Good luck.

Answer 3

Just take them to like a grocery store or even Wal-Mart.  Places like Hy-Vee and Wal-Mart have machines you feed the cans into and it like prints off a receipt with how much money you're owed from the cans and then I believe you take it to the customer service desk.  And for stores that don't have those machines, I believe you can take the cans themselves to the customer service desk.  Just out of cleanliness, they should be rinsed out, but it's not like required or anything and you leave them uncrushed because the machines have to be able to read the bar code.