Back when I was in college, I worked at a party store to support myself. We were one of the largest party stores in the area and well known for always having kegs on hand. I was the night manager and helped with the books on the weekends. Kegs are made from stainless steel and in 2007 the price of scrap stainless steel was rapidly rising. It was so bad at one point that bars and restaurants could no longer store their empty kegs outside as they would get stolen and sold for scrap. I believe at the time a new ½ barrel cost something like $150 to manufacture and was sold with a $10 deposit, but you could take it to a scrap yard and get roughly $30 for the scrap value, thus making back $20. This started to cause a keg shortage so the state decided to up the deposit from $10 per barrel to $30 per barrel. The state Liquor Control Commission gave us party stores a notice that this increase was coming a few months in advance... and I saw an opportunity.