When I was growing up, bottled water wasn’t a ‘thing’. But we got milk and sometimes orange juice in waxed cardboard containers that worked fine. Orange juice also came in glass, soft drinks in glass and later aluminum.
When I was very young, there was an insulated metal ‘milk box’ outside the front door; we’d put empty glass milk bottles in it, and the milkman would come several times a week and bring new milk and take the old bottles.
One of the main reasons glass has been abandoned as a packaging material is the weight. Remember companies look to squeeze every last cent of profit they can.
Glass is heavy. That leads to increased shipping cost.
Reusing it requires cleaning. It’s cheaper for a company to let the consumer throw plastic bottles in the trash. Let the city/county/taxpayer pay for disposal.
That’s why only high end juices, wine, liquor is in glass; that’s because glass has absolute barrier qualities that preserve expensive products.
Bar soap, too. Now we have body wash and hand soap in bazillions of plastic bottles.
Also laundry detergent. It used to be powder in a cardboard box.