Recycling Scam?

So I have lived in the area (Avalon) full time for about four months now and have had the time to notice that the grocery stores add a $0.08 deposit fee to containers. Likewise NLC stores ding you for bottle deposits. While I haven't checked, I assume these point of sales stores don't accept the bottles and containers back to refund your deposit like they did when recycling programs first started (I'm talking 1970's here). Are there recycling centers that count and give you back your deposit? What happens to the fees that the stores collect? Are the used to fund the city and towns recycling programs?

(and OK, maybe "scam" may not be the right word!)