American Can Company and Liebmann Breweries designed the Chug-a-Mug glass beer bottle with an understanding that it would be a completely disposable container. As the market for second-hand or reusable bottles rapidly disappeared in the 1950s and ʼ60s, producers actually needed to instruct consumers about the new afterlife of such products. “NO DEPOSIT • NO RETURN” implied the trash bin as the container’s final destination. That label not only appeared on bottles, but the glass industry created television advertisements like the first one below, from about 1960, to reinforce the change.
By the early 1970s the flood of disposable packaging contributed to new concerns about recycling. Note the change of subject in the second glass container industry tv ad, from about 1970. Since then, recycling has often made sense both environmentally and economically.
Additional content in the Hagley Digital Archive:
- "How to penetrate the prejudice and restore the true image of bottled beer," 1958 Ernest Dichter Motivational Research report to the Glass Containers Manufacturing Institute.
- "Brewers Vary the Shape of Things," article in Printer's Ink, 1962
- "Realizing Recycling's Potential," in Nations' Business, 1976
