Because I love a fun with figures post, here is another one.
We dropped off a total 16 Green Bags at the local Bottle drop in 2022. Those bags contained a whopping 1,451 bottles or cans. The most bottles or cans in a bag was 101 and the lowest figure was 720, so each bag contained on average of around 91 cans or bottles.
Without the fees that would have netted us a total of $145.10 back. But with fees those 16 bags returned $135.50 into our account. They charge 40¢ per bag to count them (AKA run them through a machine) and 20¢ for the bag itself (they come in boxes of ten for two bucks.) This meant we got about 93.3% back of all those dime deposits we paid at the store. We consider that 6.7% money well spent on not standing in a line and feed the counting machines on our own.
We just got a letter from the Bottle Drop folks to let us know that the flat forty cent bag processing fee was going up to 8% of the bag contents. Tack on the twenty cents per bag and our return will probably end up falling to close to 90%.
Probably still worth it. Especially if you use the money in your bottle drop account at a participating BottleDrop Plus retailers because they offer 20% more for your refund value. Meaning your hundred bucks is worth $120 at that store (mostly supermarkets.)