J.L. Vaughn and Evan Burger said they were inspired by this year's the changes to Iowa’s bottle bill, which increased handling fees for redemption centers, and decided to start their own. Although there have been redemption centers in Nevada, Boone and Ankeny, Ames hasn’t had a center since January 2015, when longtime business Ames Area Redemption Center on East Lincoln Way closed its doors. “Someone should do something about this and it’s like maybe we are the people to step up,” said Evan Burger, co-owner of Ames Bottle and Can. “And of course when it passed we said wow let’s take a look. This would actually make sense in Ames, so we sat down and ran the numbers, and it looked pretty viable.”