The age of the plastic beer glasses arrived on Wearside

To reduce costs – and broken glass on bar-room floors – plastic beer tumblers and non-returnable beer bottles may soon be part of the Wearside public house scene.

For nearly a month plastic tumblers have been in use experimentally in the Continental Hotel, where the manager said that only two customers had complained.

In appearance the seethrough plastic tumbler is indistinguishable from a genuine pint glass. The amber liquid glows just as invitingly as it does in real glass. Blindfolded customers have been unable to tell the difference.

But when empty the plastic tumbler is featherlight. It bounces if a customer observes the Wearside ritual of plonking his pint glass hard on the counter as a sign that the drinking session is over.

“It is only when it is empty that people really notice it is not glass,” said the manager Leslie Mignonelli.

But a commercial traveller, John Harrison, who visited the Continental last weekend, said: “I think this new kind of pint pot could be unhygienic because glass will always clean better than plastic. “I must admit I don’t really know if it tastes any different but it’s the idea of the thing.” A spokesman for Vaux Breweries said: “When a large pub such as this is very busy a large number of empty glasses are knocked to the floor and broken.”