What Happens to Your Bottles After You Return Them?

You drop off your bags, collect your refund, and drive home. But your containers are just starting their next chapter. Here's what happens after you return your bottles and cans to a depot in Edmonton.

Step 1: Sorting and counting

At the depot, containers are sorted by material type — aluminum, plastic, glass, cartons, and bags-in-boxes. Each type goes through a different recycling process, so accurate sorting matters. This is also when your containers are counted and your refund is calculated.

Step 2: Baling and shipping

Once sorted, containers are compressed into bales or loaded into bins for transport. Aluminum cans are crushed into dense blocks. Plastic bottles are baled together. Glass is stored separately because of its weight. These bales are shipped to recycling processors, many of them right here in Western Canada.

Step 3: Processing into raw material

At the recycling facility, aluminum is melted down and rolled into new sheets that become new cans — often within 60 days. Plastic bottles are shredded, cleaned, and melted into pellets used for new bottles, clothing fibers, or packaging. Glass is crushed into cullet and melted to form new glass products.

Step 4: Back on the shelf

The recycled material becomes new products that end up back in stores. That pop can you returned last month might already be sitting on a shelf again as a brand new can. This closed loop is what makes deposit-return systems so effective.

Why it matters

Alberta's deposit-return system recovers over 80% of beverage containers sold in the province. That's one of the highest recovery rates in North America. Every container you return stays out of the landfill and goes back into the manufacturing cycle, which uses far less energy than producing material from scratch.

Returning your containers isn't just about the refund. It's about keeping materials in use and keeping Edmonton cleaner. And with free pickup from Triple H Southside Bottle Depot, there's no reason not to.