Quote:
Originally Posted by jswinden
We still had glass cola bottles and recycling of same when I was in high school in the mid 1970s. I think they switched over to plastic bottles in the late 1970s or the 1980s. I remember putting our empty cola bottles back into the six-pack carton in which they were bought and returning them to the store for the nickle per bottle refund. I also remember and old retired man who lived at a nursing home in my town. He was old and forgotten by his family, but he was still healthy and energetic and we would see him walking all over town gathering up empty cola bottles to raise a little spending money. Later I found out that he gave that money to fellow residents at his nursing home. We called him Coke Bottle Joe. Everyone liked him. I hope he wound up in a special place, if such exist, as he certainly deserved to.
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I remember in 1980, the little store across the street from where we lived sold Pepsi and Dr Pepper in returnable bottles. Every week, one or the other was on sale for 20 cents. The other was 40 cents. The deposit was 10 cents. Weekdays we would pay the deposit. On weekends, we would take our bottles back for free drinks.
*Side note: do not ever offer to pay your little brother in Dr Pepper for a week when he works for you. Amazing how many Dr Peppers he went through that week. It would have been cheaper to pay him with money.
Oh and in the late 70's in Luckenbach, the kids were paid a nickel each for every Lone Star bottle they returned. Then a quarter to move the full case of empties to a certain spot.
And of course the kids used that money to buy their snacks.