On my way to the supermarket today I saw three persons scavenging public garbage cans for bottles that have a deposit on them. The supermarket is about five minutes away, so that is actually a lot. I am not sure what to think about this. One the one hand, it’s nice that the bottles are valuable enough that people will rather save them from the garbage and turn them in. This is, after all, the intention of the deposits.

On the other hand it’s kind of worrying that people in our society are desperate enough to do this. Each bottle is worth maybe 15 cents or so. I seriously doubt that you can earn enough by collecting them to reach the level of income even the worst-paid jobs provide.

Of course maybe these people just take advantage of every cent they can get, even if they don’t “really” need it. But I somehow have doubts about that.