We made some interesting observations about Michigan today. At lunch, Paul C ran into the grocery store to toss out a pop bottle and the clerks mentioned that he could get a refund for it. So he put it into the machine and it gave him 10 cents. This afternoon I was wondering about that and got to looking at the roadside and was amazed by what I didn't notice: beverage containers by the side of the road. There just weren't any. I mentioned this to Paul C. and for the next 3 hours we looked for cans and bottles. Between the two of us, we didn't see more than a dozen containers and we probably rode 35 miles!
Compare this to Idaho, which has no bottle law, and you'd probably see several hundred beverage containers every mile, whether you were on main roads or secondary ones. Our conclusion: bottle bills really do virtually eliminate roadside litter.
On the other hand, their highway department has a destructive habit of spreading copious amounts of road salt on the highways to reduce winter ice. The salt spray, combined with high humidity, just disintegrates anything made of steel. Yes, it probably does reduce the dangerous ice on the roadways, but there are other chemicals, albeit more expensive, that are just as effective at melting ice, without the corrosive properties. Vehicles either look like this:
or they're brand new and haven't had a chance to rust out.
And then just a couple of photos from today's ride. Below is the ominous cloud that hung over us as we skirted around Bay City, Michigan.
And here is what it looked like about an hour later as we rode along the Harger Trail north of Frankenmuth.
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