It's a set of tradeoffs. The 6oz bottles were (I think) returnable. Even better than recycling, they only needed to be washed/sterilized to re-use. I'm old enough to remember Coke and other brands in returnable bottles up to 16oz.

They were heavy. The transportation costs savings with the lighter plastic bottles (combined with maybe the raw materials savings, and savings not having to transport, handle, wash, and sterilize the emptys) made plastic more economical than returnable glass.

Manufacturing cost for glass bottles almost certainly higher than plastic. You have to melt either sand or recycled crushed glass which takes a lot of energy.

Some jurisdictions do have returnable plastic bottles. They are much heavier than the disposable ones but still lighter than glass.

Interestingly for some reason beer in plastic bottles has never caught on, it's mostly sold in glass bottles and cans.

And then neither has canned water caught on, despite all the hand-wringing about waste from water bottles.

http://www.jwz.org/blog/2015/06/banning-bottled-water-increa...

What I love about that study is that it's confirmation of what should be common sense. People purchase disposable bottles because of the convenience.

This is just my opinion but I don't believe that the first step should be trying to regulate people into better behavior, you have to educate them.

At Islanders hockey games, beer is sold in plastic bottles with the cap taken off.

This has been a growing trend in many arenas and stadiums in Florida too. I've seen them in at least 5 different venues across the state now.

This is pretty standard for bottled water at music festivals as well.

Plastic bottles instead of glass bottles probably also help. You don't have to be nearly as careful when you handle plastic bottles.

(I /think/ they are also cheaper to produce.)

And considerably lighter. Good for logistics.