I remember visiting Japan and being blown away when I walked into a bookstore - almost every book was a standard size. This means bookshelves can be a standard size. This means people can fit books into their small homes efficiently. Boxes are designed to fit the books perfectly. Cloth book-covers fit library books perfectly. Coming back to North America, it felt that bookshelves were a war between publishers to produce the most awkwardly shaped book that would stick out from the shelf more than any others.

In an age where Amazon will ship you a toothbrush in a 1' box stuffed with paper, where a lot of consumers don't even see the product on a shelf so the attractiveness of the box doesn't matter, think of the benefits that package standardization could have.

Apparently the USSR would wash and reuse glass bottles, and the container shape would be the same whether it contained pickles or whatever. I've only heard this anecdotally though.

* Standardized size (holds 0,7 l)

* Can withstand pressure, therefore suitable for sparkling water

* Can be used roughly 50 times: the bottle develops a matte ring through repeated handling indicating the approximate number of refills

* Any nearby retailer can take it back, and

* Any nearby bottling company can then use it for their own beverages

The important takeaway here is that it's REUSE, not RECYCLE, that might have the potential to reduce plastic production. Legally, producers and retailers (!) have to clearly indicate which beverage containers are reusable (Mehrweg) and which ones are single-use (Einweg). [2] This is a great example of nudging people into environmentally positive behavior. Single-use deposits are higher than reusable deposits.

[1]: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normbrunnenflasche [2]: https://www.volle-pulle-umweltschutz.de/ by the BMU