Olyns

Tried to deposit cans once but it was full. Returned a week later when the employee at Lucky indicated to do so, set up the app etc., deposited my 20 cans and plastic bottles (glass was full - others seem to experience this issue constantly also) and was rushed out of my session by the kiosk and app (clock jumped from 17 minutes remaining to 20 seconds with no clear instruction on concluding session, etc). There was critical inconsistency between app and kiosk screen - the app asked for access to my camera to take a picture of my receipt on the kiosk screen, but nothing resembling a receipt was visible, and I was timed out before I could troubleshoot. My portal in the app said I had saved 5kg of CO2 that day - yet had $0 and 0 credits available? Horrible app experience, abysmal real-life experience, will cheerfully go miles out of my way to avoid ever interacting with this "service" again. Other reviewers indicate the company must be having cash flow issues, which isn't difficult to believe based on our experiences, yet their cash flow is in no way our problem, and I want my money. This company and the supermarket chains that host their kiosks are in violation of state law by making it prohibitively difficult to return our cans at locations that are legally mandated to accept them and cash us out. Olyns also owes a lot of us money!! This experience was truly such a ritual of indignity and humiliation, so convoluted and dysfunctional and needlessly intervened-upon, that I've considered devoting my spare time to eliminating these useless junk bots. Please bring back actual bottle redemption.

I have been excited since this came out and have been wanting to use the recycling cubes. We don’t have recycling centers where I can walk to and having a disability it makes it hard. I’ve noticed that they fill up every day by around 11 AM and I work evening night shifts so by the time that I have a chance to even go to it every single time it’s been filled. We have two directly in my area and they are always filled, the store that I work at also has had an uptick of people going through our trash cans, throwing trash everywhere to take the bottles and cans out to go across the street to recycle them. I have nothing against recycling, and love doing it myself. It’s just frustrating when the area we live in really has a lot of people that have made this they’re only income. If we have these cubes, I feel like they really need to make larger ones or put five or six in each location where I’m at. I’ve had multiple people tell me that the same people every day who dig through the trash cans will turn in and fill the machines. Again, I have nothing against people recycling and I’m glad that there are options so that people can get food to eat., It’s just frustrating when I also struggle and rely on recycling, can’t walk 5 miles to the closest major recycling center that only cars, this is an option that could help provide money for me to eat, and I can’t even use it because they fill up within a few hours.

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.