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It seems the world in general has finally realised that recycling materials is a Good Idea, and in the UK town councils across the land have even started issuing us with special bins and boxes for the dustbin men to pick up recyclable materials.
However, recycling is certainly nothing new, and prior to the eighties we were all in the habit of recycling glass bottles. Most people had their milk delivered by the milk man each morning in glass bottles, which were rinsed and put out for him to collect and take back to the dairy to be refilled (hopefully after a proper good clean!).
More importantly though, people could even earn a little bit of money from recycling. Glass bottles used to be used for bottling fizzy drinks, and the caps on these always informed you of the ten pence deposit on the them. If you took one of these bottles back to the shop, they would give you ten pence.
Enterprising kids would take advantage of this by collecting up as many bottles as they could (from family, neighbours, friends, other people’s dustbins etc.) and taking arm loads of them back for some spare cash.
So why did this practice disappear? In the case of milk bottles people gradually started moving towards buying their milk from the supermarket, often because it was cheaper but also because supermarket milk always seems to last a bit longer for some reason, or so I’ve found.
Glass fizzy bottles disappeared though when drinks manufacturers (particularly Coca Cola if memory serves) started selling their wares in plastic bottles. These were sold on the basis of being both larger and unbreakable – I remember a TV advert from when they were first introduced showing a bottle of coke being dropped down some stairs, and a man at the bottom opening it and taking a drink. I’m not sure why he didn’t get soaked by the agitated fizzy pop though…
To finish, whilst I’m on the subject of plastic drinks bottles, does anyone remember that when these first plastic bottles appeared they had a black plastic base glued to the bottom? I presume this was to make them stand up better, and that this practice has now stopped purely as a cost cutting measure?
May 3rd, 2010 at 3:55 pm
Here in Scotland, Barr still does refunds on Irn Bru and other bottled pop.
When I was a kid, we used to steal the empties from the back yard of the local pub and then take them back in. We managed this for about 2 weeks, until they obviously cottoned on, and started locking the bottles up. Still, it was 2 weeks of extra sweets money!
May 3rd, 2010 at 6:22 pm
Here in California, we’re surcharged the “deposit” on recyclable drink bottles. For example, I pay 10 cents in addition to the price for my large bottle of water at the store, but I can go to the recycle center and get 10 cents back for every empty bottle I bring in.
I drink alot of water, so I take all my bottles every few weeks and always come home with 25-30 dollars – Cha ching!! Easy money baby! Why should I give it to my city’s trash/recycling pick-up? I already pay a huge tax bill for that service. Won’t give them an extra freebie.
May 6th, 2010 at 9:26 pm
We got 20p a bottle here in Scotland
Plus cold glass bottles of Irn Bru were reported to have more sugar (and tasted better too) that plastic bottles. Mmmm.
May 7th, 2010 at 8:06 pm
That was a very enterprising scheme you had going there James. Shame they cottoned on to it.
That’s cool Marissa, I guess it’s not really free money, but it feels like it when you can get as much as that back. Well worth having.
As to Jo’s point about Irn Bru tasting better from glass bottles, I could swear the same thing is true about most soft drinks. Perhaps the plastic absorbs some of the sugar?
May 12th, 2010 at 4:55 pm
I don’t remember the recyclable fizzy drinks bottles, but my father is still getting his milk from the milkman, rinsing and returning, although my stepmother prefers to buy milk from the supermarket for exactly the reasons you mentioned.
Now I come to think of it, Orangina, which you could only buy abroad in the 80s, is now for sale in the UK…and still in the pear-shaped glass bottles, although I think it is sold in plastic bottles too. But I think it tastes better from the glass bottles, just like the Irn Bru.
May 13th, 2010 at 4:33 pm
I definitely remember Orangina being available for a while when I was a kid, in those funny shaped glass bottles that Miss Moppet describes above. It disappeared again soon after but I have noticed it for sale again recently too.
It was a nice drink, full of bits that you had to gently shake (given the drink was carbonated) to mix them all in. I think the ad slogan was something like “Shake the bottle, wake the drink”.
August 3rd, 2010 at 4:46 pm
Our grocery store (Big Bear in Ohio) had a place in the back with roller wheels that you’d set the 6 pack carton on and shove through a flap. I don’t recall whether we had a deposit on them or not, but I remember getting in trouble for sneaking an entire bottle of Coke for myself when I was 8 years old