I think the real wastefulness of glass probably comes from its manufacture and use much more than its disposal. It takes a lot of energy to make - compared to aluminum, the melting point is very high and you need a relatively large mass of it to make a container. And its extra weight also means that you'll burn a lot more oil in shipping products in glass containers.

A lot of that could be mitigated by finding products that are bottled locally in reusable bottles. I don't know about other countries, but that's become all but illegal in many US jurisdictions.

re: frosting, it really depends on how how you like your beer. If it's an American pale lager like Miller or Budweiser, where the defining feature of the style is that it's meant to have as little flavor as possible, yeah, a frosted glass will help with that. As will a bottle, since bottles are perfect for minimizing your nose's exposure to what you're drinking. If it's an ale that's meant to have a lot of complex flavor and aroma, and you like those things, cellar temperature will bring them out more.

The melting point notion is throwing you off -- manufacturing new aluminum requires way more energy than glass. The reason people will pay you to recycle aluminum is because of the huge differential in (electricity) cost between making new aluminum vs. recycling aluminum. The energy differential between making new steel vs recycling steel is about 2:1. For aluminum, it's 20:1. This is because making aluminum involves first melting bauxite ore, then running a shit-ton of current through it to perform electrolysis.

It seems most German beer bottles are reused via a deposit system.