The onus for taking back empties should be on the individual stores that sold them. So basically a change in law.

In Europe customers can return their own empties when they go shopping, by dropping the bottles into fully automated machines that dispenses the refund. So they get to benefit, and the problem is distributed.

In California, in my experience, the scarcity and sheer nastiness of return centers keeps most individual consumer from returns.

My one time attempt of returning empties in California took three trips to the distant and frequently unmanned center, and finally yielded a voucher only valid in the supermarket on which's premises the center was located. No thanks.

Edit: After my post I found this gem in the comments, enough said!:

A Functioning CRV System

These dynamics are fascinating to me because I've lived in both San Francisco and Michigan. Michigan is one of the states with the highest redemption values for cans at 10¢ each, plus the cost of living (and thus salaries) are much lower than in San Francisco, so each can returned makes a much bigger impact on everyone's finances. The result was EVERYONE returned their own cans, every family from the lower class to the wealthier ones has a trash can in the kitchen and "a place where they put cans".

It was shocking to me when I moved out to California and nobody saved their cans - the culture in Michigan is that throwing away cans is like throwing away money. Then I realized why after I tried to return a bag full - in Michigan, almost every major grocery store has machines that process can returns - completely self service, at almost every grocery store. The grocery stores use it to get customers in the store, and recycling is organized and incented. In California, when I tried to return that first bag, I had to go to a recycling center that was nowhere close to where I lived and in the middle of nowhere. I waited inline behind 20 or so homeless people, and the facility was filthy. In Michigan, the machines counted every individual can and gave you a receipt readout with precisely how many cans, glass bottles, and plastic bottles you turned in. In California, they sloppily weighed your bag and handed you cash. It was way more difficult to turn in the cans and it was less accurate and half the value per can. The whole system felt like a rip off & waste of time.

The crazy thing is what people perceive the point of the can redemption system to be. In Michigan, everybody gets that its supposed to get people to recycle, and it clearly works. Its like an easy way to save a little spending money or get some cash off your grocery bill every couple weeks. In California, a lot of the people I talked to about it thought it was a program to help the homeless, because they were so used to the trashcan foraging activity. I don't know how to respond to the idea of closing recycling centers, but having lived in Michigan where the can redemption system is functioning, it feels like keeping recycling centers open to help homeless people have an income is masking the harder problem, which is what do we do to help these people get work and stop relying on entrepreneurial trash collection as a living?