Bottle Return

    About a dozen to twenty--that's the usual number of returnable bottles or cans that are in the trunk of my car.  I don't like them to accumulate in my house because of the possibility of their attracting ants or other bugs.  And I can't count on the probability of using the bottle return at the store I go to because at least half the time someone is returning their empties, often by the trashbagful.  Hoosic Valley Shop'NSave must hold some kind of record for bottle deposit returns.  People apparently come from miles around, and often with truckloads or at least trunkloads of empties.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.  But that's why I carry just a few small bags of returns in my trunk---to slip them in if and when the station is empty.
   Yesterday, when I pulled into the parking lot, prior to visiting Rite-Aid, and then ShopN'Save, I noticed a man who had just finished depositing his returns.  Here's my chance, I thought, to deposit my small trove of refundables.  I would wait until he left.  But he walked over to the 2 receptacles next to the refund machines, took  a largish plastic bag, maybe the one that had held his returns, and proceeded to forage through the trash bins.  He just didn't skim the surface; he went in deep.  At first I thought he may be an employee.  But no, when he crossed in front of my car to his vehicle, he had an almost full bag of the returnables that evidently were not accepted by the machines.  What most people give up on, he was collecting.  Better than working the roadside, I'd say.