[surement]

I get taxing companies for things that cost taxpayers money, but why do this based on recyclability? It seems like more of an economic problem: if recycled plastic costs more than new plastic, then why is it better? Charge companies for packaging that ends up in the landfill instead, otherwise these companies are essentially being subsidized by taxpayers to package things however is more profitable without having to account for that cost.

[bluGill]

Yeah, the tax should reward companies that reuse their packaging. Glass bottles are east to clean and return for reuse, but we stopped doing that nearly 100 years ago.

[TehCorwiz]

At most 40 years ago. I remember turning in our used Coke bottles at Heinen's for the bottle deposit back in the late 1980s in Cleveland, OH. You could tell the reused bottles by the distinctive white chipping pattern around the raised features.

[dghlsakjg]

Where I live in western Canada there's still some regional dairies that have reusable glass bottles (they even put the year the bottle entered circulation, they seem to last several years pretty easily).

In Denver, there's a dairy that still does morning delivery in reusable bottles, albeit plastic.

The model still seems to work fine on a certain scale.

[bluGill]

The end started about 100 years ago. Some companies held out for many years longer. 40 years ago there was already a lot of plastic, though I'll admit to not having a better timeline

[eitland]

Norway reused plastic bottles until sometime last decade (now we only recycle) and I think that in my childhood in the 80ies we reused glass bottles as well, but I am not sure about that last point.