India has cheap labor, though, neither the US nor Canada does in comparison. In Norway they reuse their plastic soda bottles, which are much sturdier than ours are, but they've got government-subsidized wages that aren't practical in any country without billions of oil Kroner coming into government coffers. We pay a deposit on bottles and cans here in CA, but it's for recycling, not reuse, and is a net loss for the state in any event.
Of course, almost everything CA does lately is a net loss, God help my native state!
You answered your concern about labour in your own post though - India's cheap labour of course always plays in, but cannot be the deciding factor here, because as you say Canada has the same high labour costs as the USA (higher actually, because we don't have as much undocumented labour), and it's only the USA that doesn't clean and reuse the bottles.
I need to see numbers from anyone claiming (not you, just saying anyone) that cleaning bottles costs more than melting them and making them into new bottles. Glass takes a LOT of heat to melt, properly cleaning bottles requires some equipment to make it automated yes, but that's start-up cost - after that the cost of cleaning/sanitizing agent and hot water is absolutely nothing compared to melting the glass. There is simply NO way as far as my knowledge extends that the crazy energy involved in remaking bottles, or even making them from scratch, costs LESS than cleaning them.
Someone could prove me wrong, but this HAS to be the result of some kind of fear mongering about contamination, nothing else makes any sense at all.
That's when you know something is a really good idea, when it makes sense from both left and right views, because in reality BOTH are unrealistic ideologies with no respect to true pragmatism - true pragmatism is doing what's needed regardless of whether the other side may have come up with the idea, and understanding that the other side does indeed sometimes understand some things better than one's own side.
And that's as close as you'll get to a full out rant from me on left vs right, as a true centerist.
;D
EDIT: And to an earlier post, the unsteady supply doesn't really apply - 99% of beers are in the same generic bottles, so supply is high with reuse, and any time you're short on reused units you just tap into freshly made units. It's really not an issue at all if the company has even a small amount of planning.