The glass in returnable bottles was heavy duty and the bottles were washed and refilled hundreds of times until they were too worn to use. When I was a kid we would collect bottles thrown from cars on the roadside, and pocketed the deposit money for candy. I remember getting 2 cents a bottle. Much later, distributors started using cheaper glass that could be thrown in the trash so the deposit system ended and our garbage multiplied.

I remember when Coke bottles (and others too) were returnable for a deposit refund. The base of each bottle had the name of the city in which the bottle was manufactured.