My family of 5 adults/teens fills a 240L recyclables bin every fortnight. A significant proportion of this waste comes from 2L plastic milk bottles as we go through about one of those every day.
I keep wondering, is milk available in a more environmentally conscious packaging? Is there even any ‘concept’ packaging that might one day be mass-produced?
People get on the bandwagon to eliminate consumption of tiny single-use plastic items, but the 28g plastic milk bottle I put in the bin every day is heavier than a year’s worth of drinking straws or a decade of clingwrap.
Incidentally, do you think a 3L bottle has less plastic than a 2L bottle (per litre)? No it doesn’t! 3L bottles need to be thicker, particularly around the handle.
I realise this option only exists in South Australia (and is still limited to a small area of the the State - so far!), but it shows that at least one company is trying to address the issue…
Using The Udder Way reusable milk kegs, and working with Country Valley dairy, located in Picton, New South Wales, the Cook Grocer is offering fresh full cream and light milk to its customers.
Here’s one in Melbourne also using The Udder Way’s keg system.
You can crush them to take up less room in the bin.
The bottle is fairly straightforward to recycle. We do it on farm sometimes. Cut them up, melt and mold. Takes a lot of bottles, but have made repairs to the IBC outlet, seat liner/contour for comfort on the tractor. There are YouTubes about making cutting boards etc.
The caps can’t be recycled in our Council area, too small for the machinery as are straws etc. The instructions are to take the caps off. A local church was collecting caps to go to make prosthetics for children, but that has ceased. The cap can be a different plastic from the bottle. I still have my caps sorted by plastic type & colour ready in case we travel closer to a receiving point.
The conundrum is finding something as low cost and robust as the plastic container, that is good for the environment or easier to recycle.
I didn’t phrase this well: “I realise this option only exists in South Australia” - apologies!
Should have inserted that the Fleurieu Milk Company is the only option in SA… to the best of my knowledge.
It’s good to know that this service appears to be starting to build up!
I’m not sure whether I want the big supermarkets to take it on, or not … their ‘support’ has sometimes been the death knell for good ideas, when they adopt and then decide to drop it.
But I would like to see all the independent grocers taking this up - and promoting it so more people know about it.
I too was fed up with the volume of 2 litre plastic milk bottles. I have switched to powdered milk. I buy Black & Gold Instant Skim Milk Powder from IGA, at $10/kg. I mix one litre at a time in a one litre plastic milk bottle, which costs $1/litre, and the taste is fine. I measure the powder carefully to get the full value and right ratio, and I mix a second bottle as soon as I open one. I have to wash the bottles thoroughly to avoid a build-up of sour milk, but after six months, so far so good.
Have you considered using glass bottles?
The ones sold for homemade passata and sauces have a long wide neck that make washing out easier. The screw caps are resistant to the acid of tomato based products and can be purchased separately when needing replacement.
Or reuse the glass bottles and lids from store bought product.
Thanks for the idea; it makes sense. However, I don’t buy ready-made passata and sauces in those wide-mouthed glass bottles, so it would mean making a purchase specifically to get the container. So far the plastic bottles are lasting well, and I will look at alternatives if/when they wear out. Thanks for responding.
Mark I just re-read your post, and realised that you are talking about buying the bottles that are sold empty. Sorry for being so thick. Yes, a good idea.
As you are already recycling these milk bottles why do you want another method for their disposal? If instead of plastic they were made of XYZ, what would we do with the empty XYZ bottles? Are you talking about multi-use bottles the same as we had until the 70s?
I am not asking you to design the solution, just trying to find out why you think there is a better way and what direction that might be in.
Dependent on where you live there is some milk available in glass bottles but it is the more expensive and probably not a viable option for a household using that amount of milk. I imagine cartons would be maybe a bit better environmentally speaking but they are only a litre.
The thing that annoys me is that as consumers we have been forced into using masses of plastic and now, it seems, it is our problem to deal with the problems plastic is causing. Were plastic milk bottles REALLY a better option? I'm old enough to remember the milko delivering every day and putting out the glass bottles for him, surely this was better for us and the planet?
Reassuring to hear you understood what was being suggested.
Not everyone will be familiar with making their own sauces, preserves and jams. Fewer the availability of reusable containers and the accessories to make it so much easier. Sources readily found on line. Usual cautions advised in ensuring the supplier is reliable.
P.S.
I’m very familiar with the old ways of supplying milk. Glass bottles and running the gauntlet of spiders, dogs and the occasional snake to deliver in the blackness of early morning.
As you are already recycling these milk bottles why do you want another method for their disposal?
Not sure where you got that - not from my original post which was about more environmentally responsible forms of packaging.
Manufacturing new plastic bottles and then shipping the used bottles to and processing them at a recycling facility is still more harmful to the environment than a biodegradable container that doesn’t need recycling. Imagine if there was a solution that was made of 99%+ renewable and biodegradable material but which wouldn’t degrade for its short shelf life of 14 days or so.
As for the ‘refill’ type solutions that some people have available to them, I’m wondering how this would work at thousands of supermarkets without a lot of behind the scenes waste and/or contamination risk. It seems a stretch.
Shops can’t get people to remember to bring bags, let alone lots of one litre glass bottles. We get 6 litres at least when we shop (it’s a long way to town). Getting a “milk keg” delivered or on a “swap’n’go” basis would be too much for us - 18 litres - and too heavy to lift into a shopping trolley and up our steps. How many people would forget their glass bottles and have to buy more, ending up in the recycling where glass is being stockpiled?
I checked the Qld Containers for Change and they don’t accept plain milk containers, either plastic or liquid board; only flavoured milk. Liquid board has its problems with recycling due to the combination of plastics & cardboard. It seems the plastic containers are the better option of the two.
I was tying to find out what you had in mind. As you came up with two alternatives I have an answer.
I agree that going back to the old reusable milk bottles is probably not feasible.
I am not aware of any cost effective alternative to plastic that is biodegradable, even then there are consequences for the environment, hopefully less than for plastic.
This is an example of the general problem with single use packaging. Plastic is the main offender but in principle the same problems arise with all. The core of the problem is the same as for air and water pollution, that systems for manufacture, transport and disposal are with rare exceptions designed to achieve a certain result at the least cost within the law. The aim is to forget about by-products that may be harmful unless made illegal and control is actually enforced.
Even then the law is rather permissive, as for example, we know that millions of people have worse health or shorter lives due to air pollution from ICE vehicles but this is treated as a cost of doing business. A cost that neither the relevant industry nor the users bear specifically but the public purse does bear in productivity lost to illness and costs to public health.
To maximise profit you keep your earnings and make somebody else bear as many of your costs as possible. Packaging is but one industry that does this along with mining, transport and many more.
In a sense we are all complicit in this scheme as we don’t want to pay any more than we do and while we sometimes change our ways in particular cases a broad policy that would result in the cost of living rising much has no chance. Eventually there is the possibility of such a huge change but like climate change we will procrastinate until it becomes urgent. In the meantime there will be many losses that will only be regarded in hindsight far into the future.
“How could they have done such a thing!” my many-greats grandchild will say. We did it because we have evolved to take the short view.
An admirable objective, noting we are not there yet.
For now it’s a hypothetical.
Less hypothetical and a useful comparison might be to consider biofuels. They were briefly being pushed as “the” solution. One cynically might say with the added support of the existing petroleum/fossil fuel lobby as an argument in favour of short term no change to the automotive industry. IE assuring the future of the ICE and pushing back the alternatives that did not need petroleum sourced fuels.
The reality is biofuels consume resources. Directly in the land they come from, and indirectly through all the inputs to sustain their production. There are those who have done the sums on what might be possible. It’s far less than we need for a sustainable future.
The proposition for the future of liquid milk packaging of a 99%+ renewable and biodegradable material faces a similar challenge. It needs to be sustainable, practical and efficient without making added demands on the planets resources. IE demands that can be reasonably met. The ideal solution may indeed be the humble reusable glass, Stainless or …. container. If the added impost of handling and washing etc is a higher cost in energy, renewables being our future, should it also be included for consideration?
That is okay if you can stand the taste of powdered milk! Why on earth would you not drink fresh milk, we live in Australia. Having lived in Asia where fresh milk is not available, I yearned for fresh milk and the sight of gum trees almost daily. I buy most of my cow, in the cardboard option.
For those I know who do or once did.
Powdered milk can meet many needs in place of fresh. Less to carry home with the shopping. Always to hand when needed without going off or taking up room in the fridge.
I have started buying milk in recyclable paperboard made from sugarcane. Yes it’s still single use but sugarcane has a far lower environmental impact than plastic I understand. It also avoids the problem of lids that are too small to go in curbside bins.
