Pop bottle returns and the excitement of reclaiming a few pennies.
Long before plastic bottles, ring-pull cans and multipack deals, fizzy drinks in Britain came in solid glass bottles. In the 1960s and 70s, every bottle of pop carried a small return deposit, usually a penny or two, which you could reclaim by returning the empty to the shop. For a young boy (or girl), those bottles were far too valuable to throw away.
It was a simple system, but one that shaped a childhood routine. It could make a difference to pocket money economics. There was also the thrill of walking into a shop clutching a bag of empties, which would soon turn into a pocketful of pennies.
“Where did you get them from?” The shopkeeper might ask.
I would try not to look guilty. Sometimes, I would take them back for neighbours, having agreed that I could keep the pennies. Often, I would find them. To the shopkeeper it looked like we drank a lot of pop, little of which had been bought from him.
The shopkeeper would inspect the bottles, count them, and either hand over coins or deduct the amount from whatever you were buying. A big haul could go towards sweets, crisps, or, maybe, another bottle of pop to start the cycle all over again. A few bottles might buy a comic.
The local shop was central to this system. Many had wooden crates stacked by the door, out the back, or behind the counter. The shopkeeper knew exactly which bottles belonged to which company and which were acceptable for return. Some were stricter than others. A bottle from the “wrong” brand might be rejected with a shrug. Others took them all. It depended on the shop, the supplier, and if your parents were a regular customer.
Pop Bottles Were Currency
For children, pop bottles were more than just containers of fizzy drink joy; they were a currency. Every bottle, whether it be lemonade, dandelion and burdock, or any flavour, had value long after the drink was gone. It could be weeks later — or months; they were still worth money.
You didn’t just finish your pop and discard the bottle — you rinsed it out, kept it safe, and added it to the growing collection somewhere at home. Our designated bottle spot was under the sink. Later, when I lived at my Gran’s house, she kept them in the pantry. By then, I was also taking back the empties of bottles of beer to the local off-licence.
At the time, nobody talked about recycling, yet here was a system that worked well. The bottles were washed, reused, and went straight back into circulation. But, I have to confess, we were not doing it to save the planet. We didn’t even know about that. No, we were doing it for the money. Finding abandoned bottles — a lone one by a park bench or one thrown behind a wall, which had survived the fall — was like finding free money.
But there was competition. In my area, there was a local tramp, who had the nickname ‘All Weather’, on account of the fact that he was out in all weather. He searched the streets and roads trying to fill his old pram, collecting whatever he could to make some money — including empty bottles. He protected his territory like a gangland boss.
“These bottles are mine.” He would shout, in a slurred voice suggesting that he’d had a few drinks already.
When Did It All Change?
By the late 1970s and into the 80s, things began to change. Plastic bottles were lighter and cheaper to produce; they didn’t smash into a thousand pieces when dropped. Cans became more common as well (‘All Weather’ collected them to take to the local scrapyard). Supermarkets preferred the convenience over holding crates of returns.
Slowly, the deposit system faded away.
Then there was the ‘Pop’ man. My parents started to buy from a local delivery service. The ‘Pop’ man could deliver all varieties of fizzy drink, flavours I’d never heard of. He collected the empties the following week.
With it went the ritual of local shop bottle returns.
No more heavy, clinking bags of bottles to take back. No more counting empties on the kitchen table and calculating the financial reward. Drinks became disposable in a way they never had been before.
For a while, it was still possible to take back the beer bottles to the off-licence, but pop bottles lost their value, and a little 1960s/70s 'side hustle' was lost with it.
No comments:
Post a Comment