Milk Delivery Returns to Manhattan
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 08.27.08
Everyone used to get their milk from the milkman; it would come in glass bottles that would be picked up and refilled. As women joined the workforce it became less convenient than picking up the new cardboard-packaged milk at the supermarket.
Returnable bottles have been back for a while; We pay a $2 deposit on our milk bottles from Ontario's Harmony Organic Dairy, with the lovely motto "you can whip our cream, but you can't beat our milk." In Manhattan, the milkman is back as well- the Manhattan Milk Company will deliver organic milk from 51 Amish farms in Pennsylvania Dutch country in glass bottles every week.
Springwise suggests that they should combine delivery with community supported agriculture ventures; these often deliver already so no doubt this is coming too. ::Manhattan Milk via ::Springwise
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They deserve to do well just for their great motto!
Reuse is even a better methodology than recycle. When I lived in Japan, I would buy this local ginger ale that was bottled in reused bottles. I would return them to the store when done. Some of the bottles were fairly scruffy, but always clean. And the product was really good; not the mundane crap you buy from national chains.
Being mostly vegan, I wonder if they would deliver soy milk in bottles...
Unfortunately, the Harmony organic milk is something like $4 a litre which is around 4 times as much as the basic bagged stuff and a bit out of my price range. Apparently each glass bottle gets reused around 12 times (this according to an in-store representative I got some free samples from the other day) which I believe is around what the Beer Store gets from beer bottles. If we as consumers were willing to deal with "fairly scruffy, but always clean" bottles, these numbers could probably be substantially higher. In India, soda is usually sold in reusable bottles (the deposit on which is a fairly significant percentage of the price, if I'm remembering correctly) which are incredibly solid and, by the looks of them, are reused many many times.
How green is transporting the milk roughly 4 hours drive from PA Dutch country to NYC? I'm all for organics but the transport cost both in terms of $ and greenhouse gases doesn't seem to make sense here, especially you factor in carting empty bottles which bottle weigh as much as the milk the once held back to PA.
Milk is green? No. Greener milk? OK. All milk to NYC comes from hours away, but what kind of truck is being used? All that glass is very heavy, and takes a lot of energy to wash and of course make in the first place.
Also, people travel to the store for lots of things and milk is one of them, so this could represent an additional trip.
This might feel nice - and be delicious - but we need some details. My feeling is that milk is white, not green, no matter how you slice or whip it.
Well kevin, almost any other milk you buy is going to be trucked in from at least that far away. Bringing the bottles back vs. recycling the disposable containers would be an interesting comparison, though.