Milk pouches
Posted by Fiona Nevile in Cottage tales | 30 comments
Photo: Jugit jug and milk pouch
We recycle our plastic bottles. These are collected every two weeks and by the end of this period the large sack is bursting with 4 pint plastic milk bottles and a few fizzy water bottles. If we keep the sack outside the house it’s a palaver going outside to chuck in an empty bottle but if we keep it in the kitchen it becomes a dominant intruder that always seems to be toppling over.
On Sunday I was shopping with my mum in Waitrose, Cambridge and my eye fell on a pile of milk pouches. In fact I’d been attracted to the word Free on a sign beside the squishy pillows. If you bought a pouch you could claim a free Jugit which is also 100% recyclable when the time comes. These normally cost £1.99 and are a reusable container designed to hold a milk pouch. The pouches use 75% less packaging than a standard 2 pint plastic bottle so are super environmentally friendly.
So I bought 3 pouches to go with my gift of a jugit jug. We like the system. The jug fits neatly into the fridge door. The milk stays fresh. The pouches are much easier to store than large plastic bottles of milk.
Even though the pouches are cheaper than the equivalent 2 pint bottles that Waitrose sells this is not cheap milk. You can find much cheaper milk in Netto and Tesco. But not pouches.
“I’m going to get some more pouches in Newmarket.” Danny announced.
A quick check on the jugit website revealed that Newmarket doesn’t stock the pouches. They are also available from selected branches of Sainsbury’s but the two branches closest to us don’t stock them either. So we’ll be getting them every other week when I go shopping with my mum. And the large plastic recycling sack will be much easier to keep in line.
I reckon that the pouches need to be quite a lot cheaper for them to take off. As they use only 25% of ordinary packaging there must be massive savings on this front. Ecologically they are a great idea but at a time when household budgets are stretched they need to cost signifaicantly less than an equivalent bottle.
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Hi.
Showing my age now, but I remember plastic pouches of milk and jugs to go with them from approx 25-30 years ago!!!!! Milkmen delivered them here in West Wales, but there were too many problems with leakage, I think, so they were only around for a year or so. Of course, the plastic would not have been bio-degradable then.
They were also difficult to pour from if you only wanted a small amount, especially if the bag was full. I have to say, I did not like them. Sorry!
Hi Fiona,
I bit the bullet several years ago and pay the extra to have my milk delivered by a milkman who works for a farm less than 15 miles from my house. Glass bottles, and milk that has travelled barely any distance at all to get to me. And is at most a couple of days old when I get it (they bottle on site, but the milkman delivers every two days). Its a good 14p a pint more that way, but I feel a lot happier about it than buying from the supermarkets and throwing away tonnes of plastic.
We have a ‘mixed’ recyclables blue wheelie bin – and our council crows about the percentage of waste it recycles. I wonder what the truth is? I listen to “Changing Places” on BBC Radio 4 which covers green issues and regularly reveals the truth about recycling schemes and the like. (You could listen on ‘listen again’ as you work on the blog Fiona).
Like you, plastic milk cartons are the major item in our blue bin. I’m seriously thinking of going back to a milk delivery in glass bottles and keeping a some in plastic bottles in the freezer for emergencies.
But as I’ve learn’t from “Changing Places” the reality of recycling is much much more complex than the stats in the council’s publicity leaflets lead us to believe!
Celia
The cheap milk in Netto etc is though, reconstituted European milk, often as not.
Please people, if you can squeeze it out of your budget, pay the extra and buy fresh British milk.
No cows, no countryside.
We too have ssen the milk pouches in Waitrose but dismissed the system as being too expensive at present.
If only the milkman was cheaper! Do they still provide glass bottles or have they gone the plastic route I wonder…
Oh for the days when you took your pail to the farmer!
Hi Fiona,
I’m not the worlds best cook, in fact, since i gave up smoking and regained my taste-buds, i’ve realised just how bad i was ;-(
Anyway, i digress, no, i haven’t tried free-range pork yet, until i absolutely master the technique i will continue to support intensively-reared meat (shame on me!)
However, i found your recipe very easy, and for me the “timings” needed trimming by 20 mins, mind you, this may be my fault as the numbers have worn off my oven dial, so i guessed the setting by turning the knob to half past seven!
whilst you mention Smoking, i am actually in the process of making a “smoker” on the allotment since reading about it on one of your other blogs.
I’ve got most of the “bits” just need the rain to stop so i can go out and cut down an oak tree and fire it up! (only joking about the tree!)
Hello Fiona
Even tho Steve has been the bearer of bad news to you maybe (as you found them to be such an advance on the large containers) you could buy more at a time and freeze them.
That way you could have them available when needed instead of having to get your milk here there and everywhere
Take care
Cathy
Hi Steve
Thanks for the depressing nudge. I had no idea that this is happening. There are even different lorries for the plastic around here.
I don’t watch telly (love it at Christmas or on holidays – just not enough time in my normal life!). Working most evenings on the blog so often miss key programmes. Radio is great but there are huge gaps. So I appreciate comments like yours. So perhaps the pouches are a great idea for people with extra pennies as the plastic bag holding the milk is 100% biodegradable. Just a few months outside in the garden and it would just break down.
The belly of pork is great isn’t it? Have you tried it with free range pork? Not massively more expensive but worlds apart from regular pork. I have just set a free range belly to cure as bacon in the fridge. It will be smoked overnight on Friday and then a few thick slices will be savoured on Saturday morning. Can’t wait.
Sorry to be the Harbinger of bad news, but if you watched the “Tonight” programme last night with Johnathan Maitland (he covers some good stuff!) you would realise that due to our “Council’s” incompetence in sorting the plastics properly, most of it is Un-Recycleable in this country. Due to this fact, most of our mixed plastics were sold abroad (to Asia i think),Whilst most of our recyling plants “buy-in” properly graded waste from the Continent. He also explained that since the credit-crunch the price they sold it for has plummeted, and now it’s not even viable to export it. The irony is, most of the plastics you carefully wash and save are now actually dumped in land-fill. The only sensible way you (people,shoppers) can have an effect on plastic waste, is simply to try not to purchase anything packed in it! not easy i know, but it can be done. This is the only way the “packing” firms will realise that plastic is a no-no, and the sooner more stuff will be left in Nature’s wrapping or in bio-degradeables.
P.s
Loved the Belly-pork recipe! – me having it again tomorrow!