I somewhat agree, but it's probably more complex than that - We have a country-wide system of reusable aluminum and glass containers that can be returned for refund and a significant portion of the population can't be bothered and just chucks them in the trash (or worse, the gutter). Lots of people don't respond to incentives well.

The incentives aren't strong enough then.

In Germany it's 25 cents for plastic and aluminum. 8cents for glass.

A lot of people just throw the glass away in public bins, because a) glass is heavy and b) 8 cents is too little incentive.

The 25 cent cans most people return. If it was 1€ a glass bottle you bet your ass people would return them.

We buy milk from local dairies in returnable glass bottles (available from some area supermarkets, it's not like we're going to the farm). The deposit is, indeed, $1-$2 (depending on the dairy and size of the bottle).

You can bet your ass we return them.

Yeah, there’s no way we’re tossing our $3 milk delivery bottles…

> We have a country-wide system of reusable aluminium and glass containers that can be returned for refund and a significant portion of the population can't be bothered

Typically metal is sorted out of every trash flow, it's really easy to detect and separate. Glass and metal are both 100% recyclable. If the incentive covers the cost of recycling / recovering the materials, it does not matter if people throw them away, they are just throwing away their own money.

i mean the refund has been like 10 cents since 1965, the incentive isn't what it used to be