Imagine this. A car is driving down a road in Connecticut, its roof covered with tied-up bottles and bags of soda cans. If the car has an out-of-state license plate, the driver may be looking for a big payday.
Anecdotal evidence shows that’s happening since Connecticut began offering more generous deposits in January. State officials say vehicles are crossing state lines to make quick money by cashing in cans and bottles purchased outside the state.
“We’re hearing stories from states like New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New York about vehicles coming into Connecticut and heading to redemption points,” said Chris Nelson, an official with the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. Ta. “Basically, we have trucks and cars full of containers coming in from these states with license plates on them.”
Since Connecticut raised its rebate on cans and bottles from 5 cents to 10 cents, the state has become a bit of an outlier in the Northeast. In neighboring states Massachusetts and New York, refunds are only 5 cents. We do not offer bottle refunds in Rhode Island and New Jersey.
“It’s basically a scam.”
A little basic math will help you understand the problem.
If you buy a soda in New York and pay a nickel deposit (even worse, there’s no deposit in neighboring Rhode Island), you’ll get 10 cents back just for a quick drive into Connecticut.
“It’s clear that people see a business opportunity there,” said Wayne Pess, president of the Connecticut Food Association, which represents retail grocers and suppliers in the state. “You can take home thousands of units for 20 cents per unit. It’s well worth it.”
He said out-of-state buyers will receive refunds for cans for which they didn’t pay a deposit in Connecticut in the first place.
“Basically, this is a scam,” Pesce said. “If there is no bond on a product and it is brought in from another state, the state, the manufacturer and the consumer lose out.”
Environmental officials highlighted the issue at a recent public meeting, but warned that evidence of cross-border redemption fraud remains anecdotal.
“We do not have access to quantitative data that speaks to the amount of cross-border fraud that may actually be occurring,” Nelson said in an email.
Still, the evidence is emerging. Environmental officials released a photo of what they say is an out-of-state vehicle with cans loaded on its roof. Nelson said the photo was shared with DEEP by a Connecticut resident.
Fairfield County’s bigger problem
The problem of cross-border bottle redemption is particularly acute in lower Fairfield County in southwestern Connecticut, Pesce said.
DEEP shared by a Connecticut resident
“We’re hearing stories about vehicles coming into Connecticut from states like New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New York to get to redemption points,” said Chris Nelson with the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP). said. Above is a photo posted to DEEP by a Connecticut resident.
He said the area’s lack of private redemption centers, high population density and proximity to the New York state border make it reluctant to confront out-of-state customers who bring in canned goods. He said many grocery retailers are in trouble. refund.
“We’re starting to see New Jersey license plates in retail stores in Fairfield County and the Danbury area,” he said. “Today, the idea of confronting consumers in any way is probably out of the question, and certainly not the kind of management routine we would support.”
Earlier this year, the Connecticut General Assembly passed a bill to address the issue of cross-border canned goods cash, making it illegal to get reimbursed in Connecticut for canned goods purchased out of state.
But Nelson says that’s a little difficult to enforce.
“Because we’re going to have to catch somebody who’s doing that and prove that these containers weren’t purchased in Connecticut,” he says.
Meanwhile, grocery stores are limiting the number of cans that can be redeemed at machines and posting signs warning customers that cross-border fraud is illegal, but Pesce said the signs are “water sandwiches”. It’s like,” he said.
“They changed the law, but it doesn’t really act as a deterrent,” he says.
Potential fix
One possible solution, Pesce suggested, is to require people with lots of bottles to provide personal information, such as their name and license number, when returning the containers.
“The game requires some ingenuity in terms of collecting information on people who are believed to be cheating,” Pesce said. “And it doesn’t exist.”
Nelson said that at this time, state resources are focused on violations that pose a significant risk to human health and safety.
But authorities still express concerns about cross-border returns and urge people to stop doing so.
“It’s putting a strain on retailers in Connecticut,” Nelson said. “We have so much stuff coming in from out of state that we are exceeding our storage capacity.”
