> I think this solution also misses the fact that certain kinds of people (like bored kids) will walk through fire for a free quarter.

This. Soda bottle deposits when I was a kid.

(Heck, even now. Who am I kidding? My state doesn't have them anymore, but I still vacation in places that do, and I still keep an eye out for bottles and cans.)

Finding discarded Coke bottles and returning them for the 2-cent deposit in 1959 in Milwaukee in the stockyards was my sole source of income. On a good day I could make 25-50 cents. That was real money! Hershey bars cost 5 cents.