If you listen to the ads and what most of our mothers have been telling us since we were kids, milk does the body good. But what is our milk consumption doing to the planet? Aside from the fact that the farming industry emits more greenhouse gases than every form of transportation combined, the way most of us buy our milk is in packaging that is far from eco-friendly.
At the grocery store, you typically have a choice – buy your milk in 1) HDPE plastic cartons made from petroleum or 2) Tetra Pack, a cardboard style container – and neither one is eco-friendly. The plastic cartons take a great deal of energy to recycle. As for the Tetra Pack cartons, they’re hard to recycle at all, which is why many recycling programs don’t even bother. So if you’re just throwing them into your recycling bin assuming they can be recycled, think again and double check because they're more than likely being sent to the landfill instead.
Fortunately, there are greener milk containers popping up here and there. The so called “Green Milk Containers” you may have seen at Walmart have a new design that enables them to be stacked on top of one another during shipment. And the more that can be shipped at one time, the more fuel it saves and, in turn CO2 emissions are lessened. There’s just one problem: the new design does not pour well, and consumers don’t like it.
Another green milk container option is the biodegradable milk bag. Some have a base for standing on their own and a handle for pouring, and others are designed to be placed inside a reusable milk jug.
However, the most eco-friendly milk container option of them all is one you won’t find in the grocery store at all – reusable glass milk containers. Yes, this old school option is still the greenest of them all, as the “milkman” drops milk at your door and picks up the empty glass containers you’ve already used. There’s no packaging waste whatsoever and no energy to expend on recycling. And most milk trucks are electric, making your milk delivery emission-free.
Of course, deciding to go with a local milk service is one thing. Finding one in your area is quite another. You can do a Google search for your city, such as “Phoenix milk delivery” or check out this directory of U.S. milk delivery services.
The green benefits of choosing reusable glass bottles extend beyond the elimination of disposable packaging or emission-free electric delivery trucks. Buying milk through a local delivery service is just that – local milk. And as any good green-conscious consumer knows, the closer to home you buy your food, the better it is for the planet.
Yet no discussion of eco-friendly milk would be completed with encouraging consumers to buy organic whenever possible. Again, most local milk delivery services offer the organic option. However, as some consumers have discovered, the organic choices are often not offered in the reusable glass bottle containers. If that’s the case with local services in your area, you may prefer going with a store-bought organic milk instead. And if your choice is between plastic or Tetra Pak, go with plastic as you know your local recycling program will recycle it.
Of course, if you really want to green your milk consumption, stop contributing to the CO2-emitting factory farming industry and go with the equally nutritious rice milk or soy milk instead!
