Glass bottles are far more energy-expensive to transport. Both filled, but also empty where plastic bottles can be packed far denser.
Reuse of bottles is also not energy-free: it takes transport, where transport of plastic bottles or cans is even cheaper, as depending they may be crushed before transport. After transport, bottles for reuse must be cleaned and sterilized. Combined with the much lower energy costs of recycling a plastic bottle vs. the already low costs of producing one, the difference between reusing a glass bottle and recycling a plastic bottle is low enough that it takes very high return rates and good quality returns to break even.
As far as I remember it certainly is possible and it might well have improved since I last saw numbers, but it's not an automatic given until/unless you have sufficiently high return rates (Germany possibly does - I don't remember the precise return rates, but I believe they're similar to Scandinavia well above 90%), and can ensure you're able to reuse enough times.