Forget the Jugs; Milk Bags a Hit in Canada, UK

These are new? We used to buy mike in bags when I was a child in Nova Scota, Canada, I'm 36 now. It used to come in a 3 bag pack and all we did was put the bag in pitcher, clip the corner of the bag and pour. We used a spring clip to seal it.

I just looked at the steps, yup, that's what we did, 30 years ago.

Here's a question, does this save much packaging weight for transportion?

Why not use good old fashioned glass milk jugs that get returned to the dairy for reuse? In the SF Bay Area, Strauss Family Creamery uses glass and it's the only milk we buy. A milk plastic bag is still a petro based product regardless of whether or not it gets recycled. The less plastic in the world, the better.

Actually they are quite easy (I am a Canadian that has now moved to the US), you slid the bag into a pitcher and snip the corner and pour.

And My mom always reused them as sandwich bags by just cutting the top open and giving then a quick wash. no need to use up a zip lock baggy.

Also a handy thing is that you can store them in a fridge horizontally (unlike a gallon jug which you can never find room for)

My grandma was partial to skim milk and would freeze the bags and thaw them as needed (wouldn't work well with 1% or more as it would seperate the milk) I don't picture that working with a carton or gallon jug, but I have never tried.

the school my children used to go to used bags for milk at lunch. they were difficult for the smaller childern to handle. The bag had to be held just so and then stabbed with the straw. milk often got everywhere except in the pre-k and kindergartners. eventually, they made it policy that teachers or aides had to open their milks, but even then, the bags were difficult for smaller children to handle - and much to easy to mis-use by the older children.

John, my mom also washed them to use them as sandwich bags!

After all we're reading about leachates from plastics, this qualifies as green? I would think glass would be a better choice. When I was young, the empties were collected when the dairyman made his deliveries....bottles were in constant use, little or no waste. Isn't that a more sustainable workflow?

Milk bags were the ONLY option when I grew up as a kid in a communist Bulgaria 30+ years ago. Nothing really new.
By the way - the milk was quite different then. It could go bad in 1 day even in the fridges of the stores. Not like the milk here in the USA today, where one can keep it for a month :-)

Hewitt's dairy in southern Ontario sells milk in returnable-for-deposit glass bottles as well as cartons and bags. They're not organic but there aren't any additives and such like in standard dairy products. I was amazed to see the 4-5 ingredients list on a carton of standard whipping cream. Hewitt's list is..well.. cream.

With regard to the bags not being recycled versus plastic jugs that are:

1. You CAN recycle the milk bags if they are rinsed-- at least here in recycling progressive Edmonton.

2. It is better to reduce than to recycle. Reduce>Reuse>Recycle

I am not sure what to say about glass bottles. One would really have to do a detailed lifecycle comparison between them and milk bags. It would probably be close.

Bring back the bags. And for soy milk too!

Blueshift, I agree completely, and not just for milk. Remember when soda bottles used to be glass and returnable? I remember collecting bottles that I would find around the neighborhood and saving them up so I could turn them in for the deposit when I was a kid.

I wish we could go back to that kind of model. You can find some milk and soda in glass bottles in stores these days, but there doesn't seem to be any real option for taking them back so that they can be reused.

It is a shame that everything has become so disposable these days. I fail to see how replacing a jug that can be put out with curbside recycling with a bag that can't be recycled is any sort of progress.

I think we need to skip "progress" and go back to some of the tried and true methods that we abandoned as we marched bravely into the age of plastic.

I'm in Canada - the bags aren't recyclable where I live (they go to landfill), and I agree with many of the comments - surely there's something out there greener than these bags! How about glass?

Nobody seems to care about the phthalates that seem inherent in most of our plastics today. Another gender bender type chemical that is probably now found in all of us.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phthalates

I would like more attention paid to bisphenol-A found in polycarbonates and is said to be more soluble in oils such as you might find in milk?

So I agree with the glass comment - washable, reusable. Of course, you wouldn't want to ship if far so find you local milk farmer..

Most fresh milk in France is sold in bags. Doesn't seem to be any problem with them. But they mainly drink UHT here and that is all sold in plastic containers with handles!

I have a scar on my wrist from dropping a milk bottle as a child. Glass is great for recycling, as it can be recycled indefinitely, but it is dangerous, companies are reluctant to recycle, and it's heavy, which means more fuel for shipping it to the consumer and back to the bottling plant. A biodegradable plastic made from something biological and sustainable would be ideal but there's only a tiny amount of plastic involved in plastic bags and yes, you can wash them and use them for other purposes.

Also, you can freeze the bags--buy milk in bulk or when the milk is cheap. I don't drink milk as a beverage, though, so my milk is almost always made from powder, which is light, can be packaged in cardboard, bought in bulk, and stored for long periods.

Shipping is more costly than packaging. Dry is probably optimal, especially if milk moves across continents. Either than or live within walking distance of a family dairy farm. I'd sooner not be that close to cow manure.

Yep, the plastic milk bag has long been a Canadian thing. My family's gotten used to reusing them as commonly as plastic grocery bags. I've never really thought of them as a green packaging, but as mentioned they can be reused as things like sandwich bags, and I personally like their thicker plastic for freezing things in.

Huh... interesting... because high-end milk in Chicago (aka AMERICA) is sold in GLASS then washed and REUSED by the distributor...aka even less waste? (granted it costs more but what brand of organic and/or hormone free product doesn't?)

There have been very detailed Life Cycles Analyses done which compare soda or beer bottles in glass to plastic or aluminum. Glass kicks ass very time, which is why the giant breweries are still quite happy to wash bottles.

Regardless of the numbers though...we are running out of oil. Using oil to make a bag which we throw away a week later is, how can I best put this...Stupid. Trying to compare renewables to non-renewables is pointless. A solar collector will make renewable hot water for us to wash bottles with. Glass is the only sustainable option.

this type of packaging is featured here because:

less than 5% of the total environmental cost of packaging is in the disposal. Over 95% of the environmental cost is in the production of the package- in the energy used and toxins created in the manufacturing process. Focusing efforts predominantly on the "end use" such as recycling or disposal, addresses only a fraction of the overall impact of the container. It is more accurate to look at the environmental impact of the container over its entire life cycle.

Like Brennan says: Reducing is the 1st level in the hierarchy!

this type of packaging is featured here because:

less than 5% of the total environmental cost of packaging is in the disposal. Over 95% of the environmental cost is in the production of the package- in the energy used and toxins created in the manufacturing process. Focusing efforts predominantly on the "end use" such as recycling or disposal, addresses only a fraction of the overall impact of the container. It is more accurate to look at the environmental impact of the container over its entire life cycle.

Like Brennan says: Reducing is the 1st level in the hierarchy!

Glass has the smallest environmental cost per unit weight, $85 per ton for virgin materials and $55 per ton for recycled. Though glass has the lowest environmental cost per ton, glass requires greater quantities to be an effective packaging material. If more material is used, then the environmental cost is higher.

AND, unlike garbage trucks, recycling collection trucks don't compact their load. Because recyclables fill up a lot of space, recycling collection trucks end up consuming a lot of fuel for small quantities of materials, increasing the environmental impact.

Though glass has the lowest environmental impact by ton, in real world applications it has a higher environmental impact.

And you don't REALLY think beer manufacturers are getting bottles back whole (and washing them) do you? I worked in a bar, in Manhattan, and while the bottles were recycled they were all thrown together in one bin. Heinekin bottles are green, Budweiser brown... how exactly are they sorted and returned to their respective breweries again...?

I grew up on the milk in bags product and it was great. Seems that west of Quebec that product was never sold.

Now that I live in the West I have been a buyer of local milk using the old style glass bottles for years. Since glass gets the best rating for recycling and the product is local it got the grade for me. The truck has to go back to the dairy anyhow, it might as well take a load of empties for reuse.

I live in the UK and get milk delivered from an old school milkman - he drives a battery powered milk-float and the bottles are glass. After use I wash the bottles and leave them outside - he collects them and they're reused. They also deliver orange juice (also in re-used glass bottles) and eggs from the local farms.
In the UK this has been going on for years, my grandfather was a milkman, but it's getting stamped out by the bigger supermarkets selling cheap milk in plastic bottles.
This bag rubbish all sounds like a bit of a waste

I have been using these bags eher in Quebec for over 20 years and have had no problems with them. I think they are more convinient than cartons since they take up less space.

Does anyone know what type of palstic is used for these bags? Recently a friend of mine informed me that these bags can be recycled if they are washed.

This might seem like a wacky idea but maybe stores could have large tanks that dispense milk into containers that people bring to the store. That way, glass bottles only need to be transported from home to the store and back rather than a gazillion heavy glass bottles being delivered to every store, every day. I have these tempered glass dishes and coffee cups and they are practically unbreakable. Perhaps consumers could purchase their own bottles made of this type of glass to reduce chance of breakage. People could even make their own quilted fabric or knitted cozies for their glass bottles so they don't clank around on the trip home. Or not...lol

I'M SORRY TO SAY THAT THIS MILK IN A BAG WAS AROUND IN BRAZIL SINCE THE 70'S. THAT'S THERE MAIN FORM OF PACKAGING MILK. PLEASE DO YOUR RESEARCH THOROUGHLY BEFORE CREDITING CANADA FOR IT...

Wagner, I know plastic bags have been around also in Argentina for a similar amount of years but that's not really the point of the discussion isn't it?. The way I see it is that bags might be better than plastic bottles but not as good as reusing glass bottles.

I think that they should all use the same style bottles. you could have a bottle for beer/sode and a larger bottle for milk/juice etc. That way instead of recycling them, they would be interchangable so only need to be washed when they are returned to the closest factory. Bottles could still be braded with labels.

If the goverment took the initiative and taxed people on every bottle bought then the tax could be returned when the bottle is recycled. This would be fair as the surplus would apply to all bottles equally.

we in india have many options still. though the 'milk-in-the-packet' has really taken over most of the other methods. but even in cities there is a way in which you can take your container directly to the milk vending booth, n they fill it up for you :) . n in smalller towns, where many folks still prefer the milk directly from the milkman, the milk man carries his milk in a a big milk container n delivers it door to door in your very own container... no plastic, no carton, n no glass bottles... oh n did i mention he does his rounds on the cycle :) or a motor cycle.

The amount of energy consumption and emissions release that goes along with the production of glass packaging far outways the entire environmental impact of use of these plastic bags. And there are many other considerations:

Shipping (already mentioned) is another major consideration. Imagine the impact of shipping a full truck of empty glass for return. Shipping new glass to milk manufacturers from, lets say, Panama to Montreal, Canada, huge impact. Maybe, 100,000 glass bottles in one truck compared to millions of impressions of plastic film. Tons of emissions are expelled by cargo trucks and boats in a trip from Panama to Canada.

Something we are also forgetting to look at when we mention "just return and wash for reuse" is the impact washing has on our environment. Take beer for example; they are not using just water to wash the bottles, they are using chemically treated (chlorine) high temperature water. All that waste water, though treated (by responsible companies only) eventually ends up in our environment. The energy to heat the water and move all that glass is emense... the bottle washers are enormous.

Filling equipment for bags is much simpler and runs at a higher speed than most glass bottle filling applications which means more liters of milk packaged for the energy consumed by the filling equipment when comparing to glass.

There are some major breakthroughs coming in flexible films (biodegradeable) which will even furthur decrease the impact the milk bags have on our environment. Some areas are also starting to recycle flexible films. Major dairys are reducing the thickness of the material they use to package fluid products.

Glass vs. plastic bags with regards to the overall impact on the environment = no contest. Public perception is what needs to change.

The beer companies would change from glass in a heartbeat to save money and the environment. Would you drink beer out of a flexible aluminum pouch or a plastic bottle?

Major issues with baged milk: the leak easier, they fall out of the container if you're not careful. These are the major issues, not the impact they have on the environment.

I read this story with interest http://www.burlingtonpost.com/news/article/172348
But since I am not Canadian, I had no idea what milk bags were.
Sounds like a reasonable idea to me.

If these plastic bags end up in landfill they are worse than recyclable HDPE Jugs. If they are compostable that is a different matter. What is the truth about recycling/composting of these milk bags?

John.

How about bulk milk. I remember back in the day in Colombia, you'd go to your neighborhood store and they'd have a big metal canister of milk and they would fill your pitcher and you'd have your milk for the next few days. I work at a grocery store and I've noticed that people are either afraid or too lazy to buy bulk food. It's amazingly stupid.

How about bulk milk. I remember back in the day in Colombia, you'd go to your neighborhood store and they'd have a big metal canister of milk and they would fill your pitcher and you'd have your milk for the next few days. I work at a grocery store and I've noticed that people are either afraid or too lazy to buy bulk food. It's amazingly stupid.

I grew up in Buffalo, NY, just a stone's throw from Ontario, Canada. I was so tickled when I first encountered milk in a bag while visiting some Canadian friends in my 20's. I loved it. I was much less waste and more convenient as well.

I truly wish ANY environmental consciousness could be brought to my new locale of Houston, TX. In NY we at least had the $ .05 deposit on glass soda & beer bottles/ cans, plus curbside recycling, but down here there is nothing. What little curbside recycling there is is extremely fussy and difficult to follow. At least having milk in bags would reduce the amount of trash that goes out around here.

Glass milk bottles are lovely and sentimental, but I do have to question the true impact they would have like others have stated - production, weight for transport, cleaning, etc. Doesn't seem to be a good solution except that new material that anisha mentioned. Bring it on! Please market these things to Whole Foods as it is the only somewhat conscious store chain that we have.

Before you decided to parrot the promotional claims that you saw in the advertisements, and considered mostly the novelty-interest value and ergonomical limitations of plastic pouches, did any of you consider that plastic would worsen the landfill problem, not solve it?!

The claim was that plastic pouches would save on landfill space, as compared to cardboard cartons or rigid plastic containers. The pouches are made of plastic similar to that of grocery bags, but thicker.

But although a pouch has less material than a cardboard carton, the polyethylene plastic would take hundreds of years to decompose, whereas a carton is merely wax-coated cardboard. Although most peole don't know it, nor do they ever give it any thought, nothing breaks down quickly in a landfill.

See what happens when you trust the industry to make decisions that are in your best interest?! When it comes to consumer convenience, we don't care to learn very quickly.

Manufacturers claim that they are making the plastic pouches increasingly thinner as they find new ways to make it stronger. But won't this stronger plastic take longer to break apart and decompose?! We could assume that biodegradable plastic would be a satisfactory material for plastic pouches, but falling apart doesn't necessarily mean that the components of the plastic become any less harmful! Particles of plastic might be even more harmful than the original container, as they're free to spread around.

I always made the point that cardboard is better for the environment than plastic. Refillable glass bottles would be far better than both, because glass is made from melted silica (rock.) There's a lot more silica in the world than there is the petroleum used to make plastic.

But people won't make the effort to return glass bottles sensibly. They'll leave some milk in the bottom of them to sour, or some other disgusting neglect. There's a lack of collection-return infrastructure, but that could be solved.

Do your own critical thinking!

- Jonathan N.

I live in Canada and buy the milk in bags because it's cheaper and more convenient and because glass bottles are not available where I live. I have been wondering about safety (BHA leaching from plastic) and environmental impact (yes, the bags are recyclable, but not in my town, which only accepts #1 and #2 bottles, not bags or tubs).

I just checked with my milk company (Organic Meadows) and they say their bags are #2 high density polyethylene, which has been classified as a safe plastic (so far!), and the cartons are also coated with polyethylene. I would bet that most if not all milk cartons today are coated with polyethylene or some other plastic, not wax. So, they may be recyclable in some communities, but they are not just biodegradable paper--in fact they contain petroleum products. Doesn't that mean their environmental impact is worse (killing trees *and* using petroleum and filling up landfills)?

After reading this discussion I'm somewhat reassured that bags (especially if reused and then recycled where possible) may be the best available option for now (I'm still not sure if I would go for glass bottles if I could get them--probably if from a local dairy, and definitely if #2 plastic turns out to be toxic too). Grist magazine's Ask Umbra says this is a relatively minor issue and that the sustainability of the milk inside the container is more important from an environmental standpoint than the kind of packaging -- i.e. buy local and sustainably produced, no matter what it comes in.

I'm almost 40, and I grew up in Quebec, New Brunswick, and Ontario. Milk in a bag is nothing new for me in Canada! We used bags ever since I can remember. It's amusing to watch this video, explaining something we take for granted here. The video also makes it sound more complicated than it is. Kids learn how to put a bag in the jug and snip it before they learn to cook.

We drink a lot of milk in our house. We usually buy 12 litres at a time, which is easy to fit on the bottom shelf, with room to spare.