Importing Recycling

I know that you've been wondering where I've been. I've been a slacker. No... not, really. I moved, and then I went on a family trip to Mexico. But now... I'm back! (yeah!)

I've done a lot of traveling in Latin America, but since I had kids.... not so much. When I went to Isla Mujeres (a little island close to Cancun) this last week, I realized that I hadn't been to Mexico in at least six years. That's pretty crazy, considering that I love to travel and live in Texas.

I'm not sure what the water situation is in Isla, but I have been sick enough when traveling that I was really paranoid about drinking the water. So, for a week, we drank bottled water (boo... hiss!) I could not find it in anything but plastic bottles. Luckily, our hotel had a water cooler that we used to fill up the bottles, but between the water and some juices, I ended up with quite a plastic bottle collection. I couldn't find anywhere to recycle them (or anything, for that matter). So, I ended up importing the empties (most of them, I'm not a saint... I did throw some away) for recycling in the US.

In my previous travels, it was much easier to get a glass bottle (especially for juice and sodas), and the glass bottles were always returnable. Almost every glass bottle that our group used (many many beer bottles, as we were testing all the Mexican beers for an important research project) was non-returnable. Why? Why would they make a specifically non-returnable bottle?
I'm pretty used to this, because in Texas we don't have deposit bottles, but I thought that it was common in Latin America. When I have traveled around, you were frequently not allowed to take the bottle with you if you got a drink, or it was poured into a plastic bag so you could take it "to go". (I know... plastic bag = evil, but returnable bottle = good).

What's going on? Is this common throughout Mexico? Is it because of US influence? Are returnable bottles going out of style? Or is it just because I was in a tourist area?