I put some cream into my coffee this morning (mmmmmmmmm!!!!), and realised as I was pouring how stupid it is that it was packaged in a plastic 'tub' with a plastic film to seal it, and an ill-fitting clear plastic lid to close it. It doesn't pour well, it uses plastic for no reason (as far as I can see), in some places can not be recycled, and is just generally inferior to other forms of packaging.
In Canada, by contrast, there is wide-spread us of waxed cartons, which makes the product easier to pour, including as it does a natural fold-out spout, is made from renewable resources, and is easily recycled.
So in the UK, why do we package our dairy products like we do? It's not as if there aren't models for better, just as economically-viable ways.
A Canadian dairy aisle:
A British dairy aisle:
Dunno but 2l milk bottles are getting flimsier all the time, pouring just using the haldle is a sketchy exercise these days.
I get what you're saying though, probably an image thing.
Those cartons, which used to be widely used in the U.K., used to be wax-coated, but I wonder if they’re actually covered with a thin plastic film to make them properly liquid-proof, because they could be prone to leaking if creased or dropped and damaged.
IIRC, the package design belonged to two Scandinavian brothers who became insanely wealthy from it, just remembered the name is Tetrapak.
Thing is, treated paper is often not recyclable, whereas those bottles are virgin plastic, and are ideal for recycling.
Yeah, it’s paperboard with a polyethylene coating and aluminium foil...
https://www.tetrapak.com/packaging/materials
Milk cartons are quite easy to recycle. Don't know about the cream tubs. Waxed paper is actually plastic covered paper and hard to recycle.
That's my understanding anyway. Happy to be proved wrong
Tetrapaks used to piss milk everywhere when you tried to open them and no scissors where to hand! 🙂
the cartons are plastic lined, I think? But clearly less plastic than a 100% plastic carton.
recycling compound stuff like that is probably more faff than recycling straight plastic. some authorities certainly do accept them for recycling but I do wonder how much effort it actually takes and if in reality they find a way to not recycle them.
it's not so much stuff in bottles that concerns me, since liquid needs to come in "something", but the unnecessary shrink wrapping and poly trays and black plastics that are black especially to make the contents look nice and are non-recyclable as a result.
germany is all cartons and glass bottles, not plastic bottles and cans. plastic milk bottles seems a very british thing to me.
Also check this out forplastic recycling
https://preciousplastic.com/
Really interesting and shows how easy basic recycling can be.
British milk bottles are easily recyclable, as are those tetra-pak ones. However it's not clear into what.
I wonder if we used glass bottles would the extra effort required to recover them and transport the extra weight make up for the resources saved in manufacturing?
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Are those cartons not actually plastic and metal and paper? A combination of two materials does not maketh a nice recyclable product. Also they nearly all have plastic spouts in your picture.
By contrast
Hdpe is extremely recyclable and widely used so there is a market for it.
In essence you have it the wrong way round.
What makes you more wrong though is putting cream in coffee
Those plastic milk bottles are HDPE and easily/commonly recycled.
Paper cartons as stated above are several different materials stuck together and need a specialised plant to handle them, IIRC there are only 2 locations in the UK which can process them. Here in Manchester they are just accepted with normal paper recycling but it's probably different in other areas.
I guess different countries just do it in the generally accepted way which becomes the norm. It would probably be hugely expensive for a factory to switch packaging type for very little benefit either economically or environmentally.
As for cream, locally I can buy it in either similar small bottles to the milk or in yoghurt pots with a foil lid. Yoghurt pots are much less likely to be recycled (and aren't accepted around here).
You're not really comparing like with like. The "milk" in your Candanian picture appears to be all manner of contrived lactose free, chocolate, almond and god knows what else. In a UK supermarket these also tend to come in "paper" tetrapaks.
Also the Candian "paper" cartons are covered in bright, bold printed designs. Which need pigments, inks and plastic coatings to produce. The British milk products tend to be in quite spartan packaging which should be less resource intensive.
Some good points here. Thanks so far.
Just two things to note, though:
1. @tomd, you are right regarding the picture I posted, but that is just the one I happened to find on images. The vast majority of dairy comes like that, flavoured or otherwise.
2. I have now looked it up, and it seems that the Canadian packaging does NOT use the foil associated with Tetrapak, but DOES coat the carton with polyethylene.
Problem with paper is recycle it deteriorates it significantly.
HDPE being thermo plastic you get quite a good return.
You have to look at the whole lifecycle analysis before you get any real idea what's best.
Scrub that q, tis 'merican.
For our council, the 'waxed' carton Tetrapak and OJ cartons have to go in the plastics recycling tub rather than the cardboard one...
I despair at the amount of plastic used for food packaging.
In the same vein, well sort of, my local-ish zero waste shop has reopened with a counter service where you literally stand (only one customer at a time) just inside the doorway. This means that you don't get to see the prices. Thought I'd try the loose tea so bought around 275 grams. Checked my receipt when I got home - over 10 bl**dy quid. Usually buy supermarket own brand, £1.40 for 250 grams. Checked the price of another bog standard item, again a massive mark up.
Definitely not saying that they are deliberately out to rob customers but they are having to pay more from their suppliers and obviously simply can not compete with supermarkets.
End result is that I'll be using more plastic which flippin' grinds my gears and will inevitably have to stand down from my soap box. Pun intended.
Ironically, and sadly, it used to be that 'buying bulk' was seen as a cost-saving method as opposed to an expensive indulgence.
One discount grocery store my parents used to use sold almost everything in bulk, and you used to have to put loose goods into cardboard boxes or paper bags and write the item number on it as you went about your shop.
My glass bottles are delivered daily, easy to pour from, foil caps are recyclable, easy to rinse out and are reused.
No need for plastic bottles or those tetrapacks
My glass bottles are delivered daily, easy to pour from, foil caps are recyclable, easy to rinse out and are reused.
And they are then transported empty they aren't reused in the sense that they have to be sterilised and essentially made new. All these processes use up resources and contribute to environmental issues* . I'm not saying we shouldn't reduce plastic to the bare minimum but hdpe milk bottles are really not the problem.
I'm not saying its better or worse I'm just saying glass bottles aren't necessarily an improvement.
But there’s no extra journey taken to be transported back empty ( and the milk float is electric) and the sterilisation process will surely have less of an environmental impact than the whole recycling process of a plastic bottle, plus how many plastic bottles are just thrown away instead of being placed in the recycling bin? Glass bottles are definitely an improvement!
they aren’t reused in the sense that they have to be sterilised and essentially made new
That's got all kinds of no in it.
They are cleaned and reused. Not ground up and recast; that's 'made new'
Plastic does a fine job protecting food with very little material. It's infinitely and easily recyclable.
It all goes wrong when it's dumped into landfill, or worse, incorrectly used in the first place.
A lot of the bluster on here is why McD's stopped using plastic straws (which could be recycled) and moved to paper/pe (which can't). Both fail when the typical Mcd customer throws it out of his car window.
The perception is plastic is evil; the reality is a bit more nuanced than that.
@Cougar do you use themodernmilkman?
Yes, but not the US one!
Both fail when the typical Mcd customer throws it out of his car window.
... which is the problem. It's not that they can't be recycled, it's that they all end up inside baby robins seals. Paper straws are biodegrading before you've finished your drink.
Yup. Sadly it's not all about recycling process and science, the human element is always present.
Something that pisses me off routinely is different sized items in shops. Like, a 1.5 litre and 2 litre bottle of coke. The smaller bottle is less plastic and space efficient, but is often actually cheaper to buy on volume, incentivising the pointlessly more wasteful package. That's not even a careless human thing like littering.
Tetrapak is a triple layer compound and a right bitch to recycle. It is possible but it needs collecting separately as it's really hard to separate put of a commingled stream and once you've got it, it needs to go to a specific couple of facilities. Even if it was waxed or plastic coated only it would still be a PITA.
Clear PET or HDPE in the plastic bottles is far more widely collected for recycling and is far easier to process.
Add onto that the embodied carbon in the manufacture, printing, transport, etc and wastage levels through the different approaches (which I'm not up to date on I'm afraid) and I'm really not sure it's a clear cut picture.
There is currently a massive amount of virtue signalling associated with plastics which has the potential to be massively counter productive. Plastics are very effective packaging materials that are effective at reducing wastage and the UK has a well developed and regulated waste management system to deal with it if residents engage. There is the potential to end up with a worse position because plastic bad other stuff good without considering all aspects.
Our council wont take tetra packs or anything carton'y as they're harder to recycle. Basically mixed material that cannot be separated easily or at all - and if they can its a more costly process anyway.
Plastic is actually pretty convenient and cheap to recycle. The best thing we could do is to standardise the type of plastic to make recycling even easier.
They are cleaned and reused. Not ground up and recast; that’s ‘made new’
Sorry, agree that reads wrong what i meant was they don't just get reused they have to be processed etc
What i was trying to say you got in the sentence. You can't just choose "not plastic" and save the planet.