Originally Posted by
StuckInYYZ
That kinda defeats the purpose of the lock. The point is to encourage people to return the carts to get back the deposit. This system is common here in Canada. We deposit either a quarter or a loonie ($1 coin) and get it back when we bring the cart to a centralized return location.
As most people want those coin-substitute release things back for use later, it kinda works still. Also, a lot of those coin substitute releasers provided by the stores are attached to key chains. Also, stores prefer people use the big metal shopping carts so they shop/shop more rather than to use the much smaller, plastic basket carts (wheeled or not) that can be hand-carried but don’t hold as much in groceries.