In California, in an attempt to encourage recycling, there is a tax on all drink bottles and cans when you buy them at the store. To get that money back, you have to drop these off at a dedicated recycling center. We had just been recycling through the campground until we noticed these charges on our receipts. They appeared at CA Redemp VA and CRV Tax on our receipts.
Don’t get me wrong, I am all for recycling. We did it at home for many years. However, it’s a pain in the rear end to drive to a recycling center, especially when you are from out of town. It is not an intuitive process, at least at the center I went to. It wasn’t well marked from the front of the parking lot. After driving around a little bit, I finally called the number on the website. The person I spoke to on the phone was very polite and helpful in finding it.
She was not the person at the booth. The person at the booth was not a happy person (which I can’t really blame them having to be there all day). To exchange your recycling, you separate cans and plastic bottles into different tubs. They then dump them into a different tub to weight them. (This station paid you by weight.)
During our stay we went twice to the recycling centers. We only got back $5.84, which seemed really low based on the fees/tax we ended up paying in the stores. Just on the Costco waters, we had a $2 tax on the pack of water ($2.99/40 pack). We bought at least 2 packs of Costco water, plus probably about 15 packs of fizzy water, sodas, and Monster. The math just didn’t add up with the fees from what we bought and what we got back. Granted, in the first week or so, we recycled at the campground. But even if it was only half of what we bought, we should have gotten more back.