>According to my parents that used to be standard practice in the United States.

You're making me feel old. I used to sort bottles as a kid.

Soft drinks are just another example of gigantism in corporate life, economy of scale uber alles. There was a time when practically every small town had one or more bottling plants, the owners were pillars of the community sponsoring softball teams and the like. Delivery trucks typically had shelving rather than bays.

Following that there was a huge spate of consolidation. Small distributors/bottlers had their franchises taken away, canning became owned by the mothership and absolutely huge. The more centralized the more of a pain it becomes to sort/return/clean bottles.

I suppose it's like the history of car dealerships as they become fewer and larger. For that matter, a significant (most?) percentage of the US used to be self-employed instead of wage slaves.