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.
Leave a reply
Hi Fiona,
Are you sure that they are marked “Biodegradable” and not just “Degradable” or “Oxo-degradable”? I’m genuinely interested, because these are different things, and often the manufacturers don’t like to draw attention to that. Even for biodegradable plastics, often “a few months outside in the garden” isn’t usually going to do it – they need to go into a “hot” commercial compost heap before they start to break down.
Ruth
I had been thinking about this a little bit in the last few months. I’m hoping that some of these green technologies will come down in price, or at least be offset by the government. In addition to the smaller things, there’s a solar well pump kit that I want – comes with a decent sized panel and everything. Too expensive though – $1600 US.
oh, and I meant to say, steve, comment #1
Harbinger.
Great word.
actually, we get our milk straight from the goat, so I’m not really qualified to comment, I suppose!
I’m originally from Canada and milk is always sold in pouches or cartons…you can by 3 at a time. I can remember my grandmother saving the pouches, washing them and then using them for wrapping sandwiches.
You can freeze milk (probably not full fat), which might solve the problem.
Also, here, when we want fizzy water, we use a Sodastream, which I bought 2nd hand for five pounds, including two full gas canisters, from our local Sue Ryder home sale. Really recommended – it’s always on tap, so to speak, no plastic, much much cheaper, just as tasty (esp if it’s been in the fridge a while).
We, too, had pouches in the 1970s, and didn’t like them. The new system looks similar, so it’s really interesting to read that you are seeking them out.
Joanna
PS love Kate’s idea of taking all the packaging back to the supermarkets – perhaps we should organise to do it for one huge consumer-revolt day … even that might be enough 🙂
We have plastic recycling here but only for certain sorts of plastic- numbers 1 and 2- most bottles are made from these types: any other plastic is not collected for recycling. Most food packaging, which happily announces itself as recyclable is made from plastics 4&5, which would be recyclable IF we all lived in Germany, but is not viable to recycle in the UK as there is nowhere that does it- as yet.So just because something says it is recyclable does not mean you can find anywhere that wants to recycle it.The only way is to avoid packaging.
If supermarkets had by law to recycle their own packaging- returned to them by customers- they would soon change their ways.Personally I think we should all return them their packaging anyway just to make a point, marking something as recyclable just isn’t enough.
Hi there,
Waitrose in Richmond have had these for at least a year now, so I guess they are slowly rolling it out across their network – who knows, maybe Newmarket will be next?
Yes, plastic recycling is a depressing story for those who actually bother to rinse clean, sort &c our recyclables. Around here the collection now all goes in one cart (all mixed up together – “it’s more efficient to sort it at the other end” – I bet!). The only thing not thrown in that cart is the green waste – which I keep for my own compost.
The plastic milk bottle disposal is not a problem for me as my lactofree milk comes in cartons although unfortunately my nearest stockist is 12 miles away. I first came across the bags of milk in Canada about 15 years ago – when I was still drinking milk and not knowing why I felt so tired etc – and never had a problem pouring from them. Have you tried pouring from the larger plastic containers when they are full?
I can imagine that leakage could be a problem if the bags are handled too roughly but if you followed that train of thought to its logical conclusion then you would never buy anything soft and fragile – like soft fruits for example or eggs! A quick trip round most supermarkets reveals that many products are prone to leakage and if you drop a glass bottle you have instantly lost a pint (which as we know instantly morphs into at least a gallon when you come to mop it up) whereas a punctured bag most times would only lead to a small loss of contents.
Just one question though, Fiona. Do you flatten the empty plastic cartons and bottles? And just how many pints of milk do 2 adults get through in 2 weeks? Oops, sorry that was 2 questions!
One last thought. Could you recycle the empty milk pouches to use like mini grow bags?
I guess I must be one of the lucky few who still has milk delivered in glass bottles by a milkman. I always feel slightly sad that this tradition is being replaced by plastic bottles from supermarkets. When I took some milk camping (porridge makes great camping food) my friends loved the childhood memories invoked by the continued existence of milk in glass bottles.
Thank you for your lovely writing Fiona.