A call for the return of the returnable bottle

I remember the days, as I traveled Latin America in my youth, when going to the store to “buy a soda” literally meant buying the liquid. In order to take the soda with you, you had to buy the container, not just pay a deposit. Buying a soda “to go” involved pouring the soda in a plastic baggie with a straw so that the store could keep the bottle.

These days, plastic bottles are just as common in Mexico as they are in the United States. There is still the option of buying the glass bottle, returning it back to the store, and exchanging it for a filled one. (Real Coke aficionados will also notice a definite taste difference between the two. Coke from a glass bottle wins the taste test, hands down.)

As with any comparison between disposable and reusable products, I’m sure there are environmental advantages and disadvantages to each. But do returnable bottles have any economic benefits for the consumer? A 1.5 liter plastic bottle is 10 pesos, and a 1.25 liter glass returnable bottle is 8 pesos (plus the additional one-time “deposit” of 10 pesos to purchase the bottle. That’s a savings of about 27 centavos per liter. Needless to say, we are using the returnable glass bottle and wondering why it went out of style in the U.S.

Stay tuned for a math problem…