In a sad turn of events in Scotland, Barr moved away from reuse of bottles for Irn Bru and its other drinks at the end of last year: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/u

In a sad turn of events in Scotland, Barr moved away from reuse of bottles for Irn Bru and its other drinks at the end of last year: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-33985022 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-33985022 As a kid, I collected bottles from wherever I could find them, and returned them to get more juice, or stickers, or trading cards, or sweets. Some shopkeepers even gave you the money back in cash, rather than making you use it to buy something from them, and those were the preferred shops at which to return the bottles. When I visited Canada with family as a teenager, I diligently returned all the plastic bottles and cans I came across for the 5c refund. Nowadays, I live in a poor part of town, and right up until Barr stopped the refund, I would see kids going around picking up Barr bottles and returning them. Whilst they were doing that, they'd usually (unprompted) pick up other bits of rubbish and drop them in the bin too, effectively cleaning as they went. That 30p refund might not mean much to most people, but to some people, it means a lot --- and as an unintended benefit, it encouraged a certain conscientiousness and pride in the place they lived. I'm sad that they stopped it, and that's without even considering the environmental impact.