February 3, 2009 - Following the repeal of prohibition, a US Federal Law required that all bottles which contained "legal" alcohol be broken after use to prevent their reuse as a container for the homemade, illegal, stuff.

Hotels complied with this law and a new job was created - a bottle breaker.  The responsibilities included the separation of deposit bottles from those that needed to be destroyed and than, with the assistance of a "breaking machine" (no workman's comp. claims from flying broken glass), the liquor bottles were smashed. 

I was the Chief Steward at the Hotel Roosevelt in Manhattan in the late fifties and at that time all the major  hotels had a bottle breaker on staff. Laundry hampers full of bottles from banquets and dining rooms would be taken to the bottle room for disposal.

The ground glass was sold to a recycler "by the can" - you can just imagine the weight of those garbage cans, once filled.  So, even then, hotels were practicing green fundamentals.

Jim Landon
Innmentor, Inc.
6235 Windsor Trace
Norcross, GA 30092
[email protected]