Detroit is overrun with lazy millennials who don’t know how to return bottles or function as adults

There’s a lot to learn about Detroit when you first move here. There are the big things, like realizing that the city is actually north of Windsor and that Mexican food tastes better the further south you drive. And then there are those weird cultural nuances, like the pronunciation of “Lahser” and “Fenkell.”

But Detroit is still Michigan, which means although Detroit is unlike many Michigan cities, we’re not separate from the state. That means that you would pay a six-percent sales tax on purchased goods in Detroit just like you would in the rest of the state, you would go to a Secretary of State branch to renew your drivers’ license in Detroit just like you would in the rest of the state, and if you have empty bottles that you would like to return in exchange for 10 cents apiece, you have that option in Detroit as the entire state of Michigan allows for 10-cent returns on such bottles.

Apparently not everyone knows this. The Detroit News has had some groundbreaking work lately, such as a terrifying investigation into dirty surgical tools used at the Detroit Medical Center, but now they’re doing a bang-up job of exposing how stupid and lazy millennials living downtown really are.

Walk into Ryan Floring’s storage closet, and you’ll find cases of empty Oberon, Angry Orchard and Summer Shandy bottles. The beer bottles, among other cans and boxes, have cluttered the closet for over a year because his apartment doesn’t offer recycling.

“Because there’s no real easy way to do it, I just don’t do it,” says Floring, a resident of Detroit City Apartments on Washington Boulevard, “so they just build up.”

Once, he left four bags on the street, where a homeless person soon picked them up. Otherwise, the 28-year-old Quicken Loans mortgage banker can’t bring himself to throw away items of value.

“When I was a kid we didn’t have a whole lot of money, so I would grab all the empty bottles from my house, cash them in and buy whatever I needed,” he says. “I saved a lot of money that way.”

Ryan Floring. How fucking lazy is this guy? (And how low is the barrier to get a job at Quicken Loans?)

We know that Floring regularly buys beer since he’s got a closet full of empties. And you mean to tell me that it never dawned on him that each time he goes to buy more beer, he could have returned some of his empties at the same store? Do I have that right? Or even if that particular store didn’t take them, he couldn’t take them to another store nearby?

The kid knows how bottle returns work, as explained when he used to cash in old bottles when he was younger, but does he not know that it works exactly the same way in the city of Detroit?

Is this the price we pay for Detroit’s revival? Bringing in a bunch of spoiled, clueless kids who are too bothered to carry a few empty bottles to the store and get money back for them?

Now granted, the News does underscore a significant issue in the city. Although there is curbside recycling available in the neighborhoods (and this might be the one time where the quote-un-quote neighborhoods have an edge over downtown), recycling other materials (that you can’t get money back for) when you live in an apartment building is a challenge. This paragraph is really the only informative part of the story:

While the city has ramped up efforts the last few years to offer curbside recycling for homeowners, many apartments and lofts don’t offer the service. Of 22 apartments and lofts surveyed by The Detroit News, 12 do not offer recycling. Property owners and management largely cite limited building space as recycling roadblocks.

But the rest of the story, holy shit. Who are these people in Detroit, and would it be terribly offensive to suggest they go back to where they came from and buy a clue? (They can come back, of course. I know you gasped pretty loudly at that "go back to where they came from" quip just now. Sorry!)

Chris Sefcheck, 25, who didn’t want to disclose his complex, says he’d readily pay the extra 10 bucks – but not everyone feels the same way. Residents recently held a community meeting where someone proposed to lobby for a recycling service.

“It was shot down pretty quickly,” Sefcheck says. “I’m sure people didn’t scoff at the idea of recycling, but that it would cost them more. If you’re not a regular recycler, you don’t see any value.”

So what does he do with his paper and plastic? What any environmentally conscious millennial would do: Drop them off at his parent’s house.

I’m willing to bet that Mr. Sefcheck’s recycling commute would be cut in half if he checked out Recycle Here near Henry Ford Hospital in New Center. (He might not also realize that in a city where there are still thousands just trying to get by, even a $10-a-month surcharge could be seen as a burden.) And nothing says “I’m a grown-up” like forcing your parents to deal with your own shit.

It’s still a struggle to grasp exactly what’s going on here. Are people unfamiliar with multitasking? If recycling is such a burden, can’t people treat it as an errand in a list of other errands? Surely Detroit’s new crop of 20-something idiots still have to leave their Netflix-and-chill sessions to buy groceries, drop off dry-cleaning, get oil changes, get haircuts, you know, adult shit, and could possibly squeeze in a Recycle Here trip in between.

(Yeah, I’m going full get-off-my-lawn, here. And I’m only 31.)

Or maybe millennials are buying too much crap? How bad is it if your apartments are getting filled up with garbage? And if you’re just that lazy to continuously keep a clean place, what are you even doing with your life?

Gotta love this New Detroit. Man, just can’t wait to see what’s next.