My PhD research was on the development of sociotechnical systems for the handling of empty beverage containers in Norway, Sweden, and the US. The history of the Norwegian company Tomra Systems ASA and their reverse vending machine for the return of empty bottles and cans in grocery stores is the primary empirical material for the dissertation. A revised version of the dissertation is under contract for publication by Rutgers University Press in 2010. My goal with this book is to trace the development of beverage container recycling systems and the technological infrastructures developed by business to facilitate and support these systems. The book examines the parallel technical development of reverse vending machines (used for consumer returns of empty bottles and cans) and the cultural context of beverage container recycling. I analyze how empty beverage containers have been handled by industry, policy makers, environmentalists, and consumers from the 1960s through the 1990s in Scandinavia (primarily Norway and Sweden) and the US.