Bag it Back is the latest recycling campaign for all of us winos (sorry, oenophiles) in Toronto. Essentially, the LCeeb is like that annoying roommate you had who never did the dishes, and would sooner pay you to do them than turn off The Price is Right and get his lazy ass of the couch. Because most wine bottles haven’t been getting properly recycled through the blue box program (and we’re getting told this … now?) they’re asking us to grab a plastic bag and bring the bottles back — no, not back to them, back to those guys over there with the hemp badges sewn onto their backpacks, aka The Beer Store, who’ll give us a return.
So today, I collected the bottles that had been sitting next to my blue box, put them in a tote bag and walked down the street, past the LCBO, to return them. I’ll keep tote-bagging it back, but don’t think there won’t be a scowl on my face and a chip on my shoulder in the process.
The system is a complete scandal, they should take the bottles back at the liquor store. In our neighbourhood they closed the local beer store and the nearest one is not within walking distance, so everyone who drinks wine but does not drive is stuck with a balcony full of bottles. My 89 year old mom has never been in a beer store in her life and is giving her large supply of winebottles to the doorman. The beer store takes back its beer bottles on a 95% recovery rate; the liquor store should take back the liquor bottles. One would think that if the government is going to own the liquor stores they could at least get this right.
No kidding… I thought of you, Lloyd, when I was writing this post because I remembered you telling me that story about your mom giving her bottles to the doorman. It’s totally ridiculous. And when I handed over mine at the Beer Store, the cashier was clearly not appreciating the transaction. Behind him was this huge pile-up of bottles and he looked sick of the whole process already. Plus, the Beer Stores are all very small in size — surely the Summerhill LCBO, which is ten times the size, would be able to better accommodate the slew of returned bottles.
I agree with the above comments. It would make sense to bring your bottles to the LCBO when you go to get more wine. I also never go to a beer store. I did gather my 6 wine bottles for a total of 60cents. So now it can pay for parking on the street for 15 minutes or so. I feel compelled to do what I can but i am thinking of gathering the bottles and leaving them for the trash collectors. Kind of like a tip for handling all our nasty stuff.