[TossYourJacket]

I'm a wine person myself; important then to note, wine bottles are not re-used in the Ontario program. None are saved, they are just crushed and recycled.

Re-use would require extensive standardization of bottles, so a central washing/sterilization facility could clean them up cost efficiently, then re-sell at a discount (vs new) to the wineries.

No such effort has ever been made.

I feel like, in terms of standardizing bottles, you run into the problem where bottle design is part of marketing now. I personally don't drink red that often (goes poorly with my off-white couch), so I don't know how much variation you get in red wine bottles, but I'd say white and especially rose wines use bottle design a lot as a form of differentiation.

I'll admit I bought a bottle of wine for a friend's birthday the other week partially on reviews and partially on how special the bottle looked cus it feels nice to give someone something that looks like more than a basic wine bottle.