-> In the `60's here in New Zealand, drinkers used to bring a half-  
-> gallon glass jar to their pubs to be filled up for consuming at  
-> home, and every tram and bus heading into the suburbs after 6pm  
-> would see 10 or 20 of these things being carried aboard. 
 
-> The odd one would explode, and an enquiry by a columnist (Noel  
-> Holmes) and I soon determined the cause;  if the owner was really  
-> determined to have his money's worth, he'd get the barman to fill  
-> the thing right up. 
 
-> This left no air gap for escaping carbon dioxide to expand into,  
-> creating enormous pressure that forced the smallest flaw in the  
-> glass to fail - leaving many a frustrated drinker clinging to a  
-> paper bag full of glass shards and half a gallon of liberated  
-> beer. 
 
-> I think you'll find that all contained drinks have an air gap for  
-> safety reasons. 
  
Makes sense, unless the container is made of slightly elastic plastic, 
or something of the sort. 
  
This sounds like something the the "Mythbusters" should investigate! 
  
-> The history of contained drinks in New Zealand follow your trails  
-> of corked and capped bottles, `crown' topped bottles, steel cans,  
-> aluminium cans .... with tracks leading off into screw-topped  
-> glass wine bottles and screw-topped PEP (?) bottles. 
 
-> Pet food cans here are aluminium (small) and tin (large),  and  
-> beans, vegetables and food containers vary between glass, tin or  
-> steel. 
  
I guess we should have mentioned that domestic beer, here, is mostly 
sold in reusable glass bottles. Cans are available, but less often 
used. All the major breweries use identical bottles, which are returned 
to a central depot after use, where they are cleaned and re-distributed 
to the breweries. All the breweries do to them is fill them, put the 
caps on, and stick their labels on. The rate of reuse is very high - 
more than 95 percent, I believe. Many bottles have little scratches on 
them that are produced by being jostled against other bottles through 
many cycles of use. There is a deposit of ten cents per bottle which is 
refunded when the bottle is returned. If someone goes to the Beer Store 
and buys a case of 24 bottles, he will typically pay about $30, but get 
$2.40 back for returning the same number of bottles. That's a 
significant saving. 
  
*Everything* that the Beer Store (a government operation) sells can be 
returned to it, even bottle caps. However, I don't think there's any 
money for caps. 
  
The bottles are 12 *British* fluid ounces. 341 ml. 
  
                        dow 
--- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v3.0pr5