Olyns 4+

I used to take my cans and bottles to a recycling center where they measured by weight. They didn’t pay the full CRV, plus it was loud, smelly, dirty, and not close to home. When I discovered there was an Olyns cube in a nearby Safeway, I was curious and have it a try. So far it’s been generally quite easy. I love how it connects to PayPal and pays whenever you want to cash out. Sometimes there are technical difficulties with the machines but normally I can get 50 cans in pretty quickly. The biggest annoyance is that the machines fill up very quickly and I have to time my trips by checking the app. I wish there were more locations as well. For example there’s a Whole Foods, another Safeway, and several Asian markets in my town but only one Olyns in a Safeway.

The app is quite bare-bones and would benefit from the following features:
-ability to set a favorite/home location and get notifications when it’s empty, full, etc
-ability to send an SOS to their team when the machine freezes
-linking to your navigation app when you click on a location

The 50/day restriction is actually CA state law, not the fault of Olyns. It’s annoying, but at least my husband and I can each do 50/day to get through our backlog.

I came across this machine while walking past my local Smart & Final.

Downloaded the app and started putting some of my empties in a shopping bag as I passed this machine on my daily walk

First time I tried using the machine. It was a little difficult. What you have to know is not so much to open the app to start but to open, your “Wallet” and select the Olyns “card “and with that open bring your phone close to the machine so that it will sense it and ask you to insert your empty, undamaged, redeemable container into the hole. once I learned that, it has become my regular practice to put a few cans in my bag and drop them off at the nearby machine.

For years, we’ve all been ripped off getting a small percentage of what we pay in fees and it’s always been a huge hassle to recycle. This takes all the effort away from the customer service people at the stores by providing machine that do it all. Just wish there were more around and could handle a larger capacity. Great vision by Olyns!