Gallon Milk Jug Gets Redesigned For a Low Carbon World

Our Costco has had these jugs for a while, and it is certainly obvious why they switched to them; they stack in a nice square on a pallet. But as mentioned in the article, I can also attest that it is a pain to pour from them; I still haven't quite mastered avoiding spilling a little when pouring from a mostly full jug.

These jugs are not designed to pour liquid - seems like an accessory that screws on in place of the cap in a material that is dishwasher safe and will last indefinately ( like stainless steel or glass) would solve the problem and make these jugs user friendly!

We buy our milk in reuseable glass bottles. It's really fresh and keeps much longer. It costs more to ship, but they're only coming from about 10 miles away.

Anybody know what kind of plastic this is? For instance, my municipal recycling only accepts #1 and #2. Are we closing loops yet?

So where do cartons (that I assume are some kind of cardboard) fall in this equation? I can't remember the last time I bought a plastic jug of...anything, really.

From the picture it looks like the new jug should be easier to pour than the old ones. Half-gallon cartons have spouts, but the plastic gallon jugs never have (not in my lifetime). They have a plastic cap on the top of the jug near the center of the jug, and it is nearly impossible to pour one glass of milk without spilling any, at least when the jug is full. For this new style, it looks like the cap is near one corner, which should improve matters.
What seems odd to me is, why the indentations on the side? Isn't that less material efficient? I guess it might catch the eye better than smooth sides, though.

The indentions are for structural support.

If the shrink wrapping can be recycled effectively - ideally into milk bottles, this is a winner. Otherwise it is questionable without an LCI to look into the details of energy and materal inputs of the two systems.

Anthony,

The indents on the side are for structural stability - corrugation provides protection against vertical (i.e., stacking) forces. If you go to the NYTimes online article, there's a good picture in the slide show illustrating how tightly these can be stacked and shipped.

I think (without having tried it out myself), that Greg Soehnlen (the engineer who designed the jug) suffered from thinking like an engineer and not like a designer. Yes, it serves the purpose of being able to pack and ship these jugs tightly. However, having a handle that is both flush to the side of the jug and near the very top corner of it means that you'll have a hell of a time pouring it unless you use two hands (one steadying the bottom) or have really strong wrists. (Silly engineers with their uppity-ness when it comes to thinking they know how to design things.) ( *note: that's a joke* ) From where I'm standing, all it really needs is the handle to be placed closer to midway down the height of the jug, thus providing the jug-holder with a more balanced vessel from which to then try and pour.

Seems to me this jug is engerneed for strength, ease of shipping and the opening is on the corner, which should make pouring a little less complicated than the center on gallons.

These new jugs suck! I was buying milk at Costco when they switched to these last year. I stopped buying them and bought milk at another store. The problem is when the jug is full, filling a cereal bowl is difficult. The milk rushes out too fast an there is no way to regulate the flow because if you use too low an angle the milk jut runs down the side of the container.

This design may reduce waste, but it wastes milk and makes a mess. No thank you!!

I even emailed Costco to complain about the design, but got a canned response.

@Anthony:
I think the ridges on the side are for dimensional stability (so the jug doesn't pooch out or collapse under the weight of the jugs on top of it). This is just a conjecture.

the indentations on the sides of the jug add rigidity to the container.

-brock

The ridges on the side are for vertical structural rigidity.. more stackable.

the spout in the center of the old gallon milk jugs actually made it easier to pour a small glass without having to lift the jug off of the horizontal surface.. tall glasses, however, present an issue..

Their test users should have included those that might have trouble steadily lifting a gallon jug and pouring from it.

The linked NY Times article cites complaints that the new jug is hard to pour from. Unlike a conventional milk jug, which can be tilted quite a bit from vertical before milk begins to pour, the location of the opening on the new jug will release milk while the jug is nearly vertical. Since the milk is exiting the jug from such an angle, it will tend to follow the surface of the jug without breaking away into a pour stream. Pouring from such an angle also creates a weak stream, which does not have sufficient velocity to escape the surface effect.

Using a more hydrophobic material on the lip of the opening would alleviate this effect somewhat, but a better design would increase user satisfaction.

Also, if you look at the design of the opening, it is recessed a bit from the corner of the jug. This makes a slight shoulder on the inside of the jug that will hold a small amount of milk that will not pour out. Such reservoirs occur in a number of other container designs, which is very frustrating.

Finally, in response to the question about the indentations: These are corrugations that give the jug stiffness. They allow the jug to support the weight of other jugs stacked on top of them. The ability to be stacked is one of the sources of packaging efficiency for this new design, since it obviates the weight, cleaning and return-transportation costs of milk crates, to the detriment of college students everywhere.

Anthony -- if I were to guess, the ribs on the sides might help it hold its shape better -- preventing it from becoming a slumpy ovaloid. That could mean thinner plastic overall, and tighter packed trucks.

Of course, if they wanted to be really cool they could have one side concave and one convex, so they seamlessly lock together on pallets and take up every inch of space on the truck. But the stores would cry, since restocking would be a nightmare (you couldn't slide columns forward) -- and convex ribs might warm faster and reduce shelf life. So this is probably the best they can do...

In my experience, these jugs spill a few drops more of milk when they are at their fullest. But after pouring one glass they are no worse than the traditional shape and perhaps better.
The indentations are probably for strength so they can use thinner (and less) plastic.

"What seems odd to me is, why the indentations on the side? Isn't that less material efficient? I guess it might catch the eye better than smooth sides, though."

Those grooves are probably for stability. By adding those they don't have to use a thicker plastic to get the same effect, so in the end its less plastic used, not more.

Anthony...

My guess is that it's for strength in the container.

It doesn't look easier to me.
The place at which the milk comes out looks HUGE and if you have a litlte cup or heck, even a bottle, that will be ONE huge mess.
If gas wasn't so high, we wouldn't worry up about how eco-friendly the design of our milk jugs are.
I find the half gallons MUCH easier to pour.
In any case, I guess I need to visit my local Sam's Club so I won't waste my OWN milk trying to learn how to pour it.
Hopefully they'll redesign it once they learn most consumers will find it too cumbersome to use the new jug.

People hate change, but when it's forced on them with no option, guess what, we adapt.

make it nation wide, ban all thin plastic, and we'll survive.

I have to agree with Anthony - the indentations create more surface area increasing the amount of product that has to be used to create the container and lowering the amount of fluid it can hold. This seems counter intuitive to the goal of the redesign, but then again I am not a milk container designer.

Also, removing the tapered top of current milk containers requires more product to produce - I guess this could be more about the efficiency of the production process and less about how much plastic is being used.

I am going to have to dig up some more info on the shipping efficiencies - the pic makes the jug look square. I would think a tapered interlocking design would be better for shipping cost.

Could be that it's easier for holding. I love redesign stories like this. One of my favorite stories is the redesign of the Target prescription pill containers. It's amazing how something as simple as moving some things around and changing the shape can improve a product in ways you didn't think possible.

I've tried one of these new gallon bottles from Costco and I hated it. The spout is very large and it dribbles everywhere when you try to pour it. It's poorly designed.

I prefer milk bags to jugs any day, but I suppose this is a start.

I assume the "indentations" provide some additional structural integrity. With a square rather than round profile, that would be important. Perhaps the bottles even interlock when they are on the shipping palettes.

We get these from Costco and they're not any harder to pour... I won't say it's any better in terms of feel but if you think it's any worse then you are too particular.

And, Anthony, I may be wrong but I think the dents are to give it structure. Especially when stacking (which makes them cheaper to ship since you need less infrastructure to stack them, then you need the jugs to withstand more weight.

Anthony, the indentions in the side are most likely to improve rigidity of the sides. Allowing them to stack more in a shipping container without them bowing out.

Having purchased one of these at a local Sam's Club I saw no difference except for the fact that it was a bit shorter so I could fit it on more shelves in my refrigerator. My children had no issues poring from the new design.

First off... Wow, that's a lot of milk! Is that the standard container size in the States? It's more than twice what we'd buy in New Zealand (and we have a lot of cows).

Anthony: The ridges will be there because they add considerable rigidity, allowing thinner or lower grade plastic to be used.

Anybody know anything about the footprint of these things? Will they still fit in the fridge doors properly?

Other than, say, a three year old, who has trouble pouring milk? I don't really see how this new design will be more difficult to "pout" (as written in the article :->).

Being serious, though, I haven't seen these new jugs yet, but, is the plastic recyclable, etc?

The grooves are to prevent buckling. They stack these 4 high on a pallet with no other support, so the bottom container has to support about 25 lbs. You can see how they did that by making the top surface flat to even out the load, with big rads on the transition to the vertical sides. It's a nice design.

I used to live in Germany in the 80s and 90s and they sold liters of milk in thin film plastic bags (about the same thickness as a bread bag). The bags would be taken home and either placed or emptied into a hard-plastic or glass milk jug that nearly every household owned. It always struck me as a more economical and environmental packaging solution.

P.S. A google search for 'milk in a bag' showed lots of hits indicating Ontario also uses milk bags.

It's a nice design for shipping, but the designer lost sight of the end use. If consumers need to adjust to using a product as simple as a milk jug, it's clear that someone did a bad job on the user aspect of the design. From what I've seen, people are having trouble pouring a single time without getting a spill every time. I applaud the fact that the design considers its impact on distributors, but forgetting about the user is a design sin.

Now it's a question of whether or not the designer will take this real world criticism and redesign the product for easier use, or put her hands over her ears and continue to tell the world, "You're doing it wrong!"

Do they really need such huge containers of milk - made of plastic? Why not just pack the milk in Tetrapak bricks? They don't buckle - and a liter is big enough isn't it? If not; take two, then recycle the containers after your done. Those huge containers are ridiculous.

How much milk can you drink before it goes bad, anyways? How big a family are these gallon jugs meant for?

Having to teach adults how to pour a glass of milk is a pretty good indication of how bad the design is.

one good thing about this redesign is that the container is no longer transparent, though it will be herder to know exactly how much is in with giving a jiggle or looking through the hole. without light getting in as much it will increase the shelf life of the milk

think about all those glass door refer cases at the stores, then the transparent plastic letting in the light

I wonder if they'll do the same for soymilk.

It is nice when you see a change that makes a real difference. I wonder if this will just be a change with milk or will it move on to other gallon products like Orange Juice?

The only problem is that it is still made with oil intensive plastic.

I dunno....there's two of us in a household and we go through roughly a gallon a week. Between cereal, coffee, and glasses with dinner, it gets used. [shrug] I grew up on a dairy farm in the Midwest US....maybe that's why?

The Costco I go to has been using these jugs for 5 or 6 months. They weren't my favorite at first but they have grown on me. I think they are easier to break down plus I have found other uses for them.

My favorite part of this post is the picture. Anyone else notice the mountainous stacks of Gatorade G2 in the background? Not only is the product bottled in individual plastic containers, but then they are wrapped in plastic. I think this is what we call irony.

Okay, I think we've covered the whole thing with the ridges on the sides.

These look great to me, I'll make sure to grab them when I next see them. I can't see why on earth it would eb ahrd to pour with these.

For those of you not in the US - many teenage boys will go through a gallon of milk a day. Picture a family with 3 or 4 growing boys each participating in one or two sports requiring a lot of gear and daily practice and then add in two or three trips a week to the grocery store - well, you get the picture, and now you know why mom drives an SUV, too.

People still drink milk? Ewww!

I'm so vegan. heh.

In Japan, the milk is in a MUCH smaller container, but when I was a kid growing up in a nasty suburb my family of four would drink one of those in a day. Japanese milk containers are paper cartons, and they are very often recycled. The grocery store next door to me has a bin for them- great.

Deal with it. POUR CAREFULLY. buy the milk!

The bottle is compeletly redesigned for structual reasons (including the ribs). The gram weight of the plastic although has went up because of the extra stability needed. There is not much truth to the comments about 50% more milk to the truck. Because the trucks are already loaded to capcity. So the only way to get more on the truck is to overload them past the laws of the road. The material they are made of is HDPE the same as the old bottles. The shrink wrap is not. If you don't like the way these bottles pour wait until you see the competitors bottle due out next month. It is a far better design.

Follow Canada's 30+ year lead and switch to Milk bags! So much more efficient, and easy too!