If you have less than 500 cans and bottles, you can bring them in whatever bags you like and we will count them by hand. 

If you have 500 or more containers, they need to be in our can bags, and we will measure them on our can-o-meter.

Iowa's bottle bill deposit law covers all carbonated and alcoholic beverages. We redeem any container that has IA 5¢ printed on it. 

Yes! 

No. Containers will be rejected if they still contain liquid, other foreign materials or are crushed to where they can't stand on their own or if the deposit information is not visible.

Yes, but they must be in cardboard boxes or plastic totes - we do not pay for glass in bags. Any bags containing glass bottles will have 30% deducted from their total.

Non-redeemable cans

We can't pay you for aluminum cans that do not say IA 5¢, but we are glad to recycle them for you at no charge. Some examples of non-redeemable aluminum cans are:

• Tea (Arizona, Peace Tea, etc)
• Lemonade or other juices (Minute Maid, Mott's, etc)
• Beers that are not sold in the state of Iowa (New Glarus, etc)

Non-redeemable plastic bottles

We also cannot accept plastic bottles that do not say IA 5¢. We do not have the ability to recycle non-redeemable plastic so please dispose of it in another way. Some examples of non-redeemable plastic bottles are:

• Tea (Pure Leaf, Gold Peak, etc)
• Non-carbonated water (Dasani, Aquafina, etc)
• Lemonade or other juices (Minute Maid, Mott's, etc)

Non-redeemable glass bottles

Finally, we do not accept non-redeemable glass containers. Please recycle your non-redeemable glass at one of these locations instead. Examples of non-redeemable glass are:

• Tea (Snapple, etc)
• Non-carbonated water (Mountain Valley, etc)
• Beers that are not sold in the state of Iowa (New Glarus, etc)
• Food jars and bottles (pickle jars, soy sauce bottles, olive oil bottles, etc)

Please visit our Hours page to see the hours of operation for each location!

No, we will take as many containers as you can bring us. However, orders larger than 500 cans must be in our can bags.

We have two locations:

Our AMES address is 5820 Lincoln Way, Suite 106, Ames IA 50014 

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Our ANKENY location is 1317 SW Ordnance Rd. Ankeny, IA 50023

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Step 1: Come for a visit. Bring in your cans and bottles. For our employees' safety, glass must be separated into cardboard boxes or totes and will not be accepted in bags.

Step 2:  Count 'em up. We will count items individually or by using our can-o-meter. You can also let us know how many glass items and/or cans you have for redemption, and we'll double-check your count.

Step 3: Get Paid. We offer several payment options, including Venmo, cash pickup, and donation. We will let you know when you will receive your payment at drop-off. 

Bring your cans and plastic however is easiest for you, but glass bottles must be in cardboard boxes or plastic totes. For the safety of our sorters, we do not accept glass in bags.

If you choose to be paid via cash pickup, you have 30 calendar days to pick up your payment.

We reserve the right to refuse payment for orders that contain anything dangerous to our sorters (needles, human or animal waste, broken glass, etc)

Yes! Our can bags are 50 cents each, refundable upon return of the full bag, and our can boxes are $6 each.

No.

You have a few different options! The easiest is to buy our can bags and transfer your cans into them. But if you don’t want to do that, you can pre-count your cans before you come in, or you can donate your cans to our non-profit of the month. 

Yes! We pay 5 cents for shooter bottles. 

Glass in bags tends to break. Our sorters handle all orders in bags by hand – we cannot have them dealing with broken glass. For that reason, we deduct 30% from any bags that contain glass bottles.

Our goal is to make redemption easy and fun. Unfortunately, large orders of over 500 cans at a time tie up our sorters so that we cannot serve any customers. They also take up a lot more space than cans in can bags, because we have to keep all orders separate. 

As we head into our spring busy season, we are making these changes so that we can operate more efficiently, and continue to make redemption easy and fun in the Ames and Ankeny areas!