Why don't recycling machines accept some bottles?

Question

Environment/Recycling

Answer 1

The price of used aluminum is high enough that certain individuals have recycling machines set out for environmentally conscience but naive people to place this valuable resource so that they can turn around and make $$$ from the recycles.  Take your cans to a local center as a donation so that your bottles and plastic and papers (recycling them are either borderline profitable or recycled at a loss) can also be recycled.

Answer 2

Not sure which bottles you are talking about but they probably don't have deposits on them.

Answer 3

Are you are referring to the automated machines that many grocery stores in "bottle return states" have?  If so, I've found that most of these machines only accept the bottles/cans of products that are currently being sold in the store.  These machines scan the bar codes on each item you feed into them and they check for two things: 1) to make sure the item has a deposit on it (carbonated & alcoholic beverages) and 2) to make sure the item is sold in the store.  

We used to live in Oregon and had to sort out returnable recylables by the store at which we'd purchased them.  Bottles/cans from products that are sold everywhere (like brand name cola products) can returned everywhere (well, to every store that sells them...but if it's a popular product, that'd be about everywhere!).  Conversely, bottles/cans from more unique products (like imported beer that only one grocery chain carries) can only be returned to the place of purchase.  This is because the stores aren't actually in the business of buying recyclables...the machines are there to make it easier for them to pay you back the deposit that you paid on the bottles/cans at the time you purchased the product (usually 5-10 cents per can/bottle, which is rang up at the register separately from the purchase price).  Stores are required to accept back bottles/cans for products they've sold.  Even stores without the machines have to do so...you just have to bring the products into the store to do it, which probably dissuades many customers from doing so.