[AStonesThrow]

Speaking of public transit: bus stops and train stations are prime locations to drink your singlet can of beer and drop it on the ground, in a planter, or just leave it on a seat for someone else to move it later.

While it is not easy to drink an open container on a bus or train, drunks will consistently stop in a nearby convenience store, have a cold one before boarding, and leave it there for others to clean up. I suspect that a high percentage of convenience-store sales for singlet cans and bottles may be attributed to pedestrians and transit passengers.

[eru]

Cans are actually good for this. (Much better than bottles.)

Aluminium is so comparatively high value, that it's usually in someone's interest to collect it.

Used glass is just bulky and cheap per gram.

[AStonesThrow]

Most drunks would rather not invite trouble by carrying around glass bottles. You don't want them near pools or jacuzzis, and you don't want to drop one on a bus or train and cause undue attention. Dropping or abandoning a metal can, by comparison, is no trouble.

And you're definitely right about recovery value. I believe, in Arizona, that glass has no redemption value at all, and so cans are the only logical choice.

There used to be a guy around here, a real character, called himself the Can Man, and he weighed about 350 lbs, and just rode the bus all the day, accompanied by an enormous bag full of cans that he would collect from every site possible. And he had songs he would sing and a little patter about himself, and whereas a can-collecting dude would normally be sort of smelly and repulsive, he managed to add to the "local color" and be somewhat endearing as he rode the bus around doing his can-collecting thing. I miss that guy!