They're talking about returnables which is how beer used to come. Imagine instead of just recycling your beer bottles you hauled it back to the store for it to be sent back to vendor. I've worked around refillable milk containers and it was a pain in the ass, beer I can only imagine is more so.

It would be absolutely nuts if anyone wanted to use non-standard bottles or specific glass colorings. A standardized bottle that everyone used (only label as differentiation) would be cool.