California

It's not rocket science to rinse out containers and bag them until you have a truck full.

Or you can give that money to whoever hauls your trash by throwing them in the recycling bin.

I have friends and relatives living in rural California. Some of them keep their drink containers to redeem in the city a few times a year. My parents always did that when they lived in rural California. Or you can simply throw drink containers away and not worry about nickles and dimes.

We live in a densely populated area not far from a parking lot redemption center, the same parking lot where busses pick up and drop off farm laborers. I give our empties to a few local people who appreciate the extra money. One guy is an elderly recent immigrant now living with his grandchildren. He hates being retired and not working so he scours the neighborhood for cans and bottles and cashes them in when he can't carry any more.

But I gotta ask, why is money going into the state budget a bad thing? Maybe this looks like a regressive sin tax to you, which it very well may be. Frankly, the only containers recycled for significant environmental reasons are aluminum cans. It takes much less energy to recycle aluminum than it does to mine and extract it from ore. Even if the rest of the stuff ends up in the dump that's still better than having it end up as litter alongside highways or other public places.