No deposit no return?

My mom’s parents used to live about a mile outside of Gimli. As kids, for extra money, we used to fish bottles out of the ditches for refunds. Back in the day, there used to be a lot of beer bottles and even some pop bottles. This was before plastic pop bottles became popular and beer was still mostly sold in stubby bottles instead of cans.

Early spring, after the snow thawed, was a great time to walk up the side of the road, cleaning out the bottles from the ditch with a fishing net. Even at the penny a bottle (and a nickel for pop bottles!), we were able to get several dollars worth for a few hours of work. This was quickly turned into comic books at the local Robinsons.

As we got older, cans became common for pop and beer and the amount of bottles in the ditches made it less worthwhile. Plus the amount of bottles had declined sharply. Sad for us but probably safer for the roads.