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Comment by m463 | Hacker News Reader

I think the bottle deposit is an interesting optimization.

That said, I remember being in mexico and when you buy a coke "to go", they don't want to bottle to walk away. So they helpfully pour it in a plastic bag, stick a straw in it and seal the plastic bag to the straw with a rubber band.

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So now instead of a single bottle, you have a plastic bag, a straw, and a rubber band as litter all the while destroying any guarantees of not getting food borne illnesses.

I'm old enough to clearly remember when Coca Cola was distributed in glass bottles. There was no plastic of any kind, except for maybe a gasket inside the metal cap. Individual serving size bottles had bottle caps and larger size had metal screw caps with metal safety-seal thingies that broke off when you opened it for the first time. All of them had deposits that were refunded when you turn them in.

I don't know about the economics or logistical feasibility of returning to the same setup, but to suggest it's not possible (while still ensuring product safety) is inaccurate.

We do it for beer, so I don't see why not. At least in Ontario, I've seen people walking into the LCBO with cases of empty bottles (I don't drink alcohol myself, so can't confirm how prevalent this is).

But glass bottles are heavy, and I'm sure that makes shipping more expensive and increases CO2 emissions.

For what it's worth, beer seems to be transitioning back to cans now on the high end. Cans are much lighter, still just as recyclable, and crucially, they keep the product fresher (which matters more for nice beer than for soda).

I'm old enough to remember when all drinks came in standard 0.5 and 0.3L bottles, which were returned for a sizable deposit, shipped back to the factory, steam-cleaned, and reused...

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