Are Bags-In-A-Bottle Be The Future of Packaging?

treehugger.com:

The Ecologic Brands hybrid milk bottle is biodegradable, compostable and recyclable. We say hybrid because it is really two bottles in one. The outer shell is made from 100% recycled cardboard, using the same paper pulp methods that create egg cartons.

Read the whole story: treehugger.com

Comments

[hellboundtrain]

11:55 AM on 03/04/2010

Tell us if anything leaches into the milk from the inside plastic liner.
I like glass.

[Clovie]

06:46 PM on 03/03/2010

Are our childrens learning?

[jonathonz]

02:27 PM on 03/03/2010

When I first saw this article I thought, "How is a bag and a bottle better than a carton?" After reading the article I don't think it is better. People don't want to disassemble refuse before recycling. I handle all the recycling for my apartment building and from my experience people aren't going to bother pulling the plastic out of the carton to recycle the cardboard. That's too much effort for the average person that doesn't really care about recycling, which is still most people in my opinion. You wouldn't believe the messes that I find on a weekly basis in our recycling bins. Back to the drawing board.

[travelah]

01:57 PM on 03/03/2010

The recycled pulp shell is generally low grade pulp and it can be recycled only a few limited number of times before it becomes nothing but a mess of short fiber gunk and useless. I think milk carton stock is still the preferred way to go. The ink tack and poly is easily removed and the SBS fiber is very recyclable.

[DRaymond]

01:45 PM on 03/03/2010

I don't see the big deal here. Plastic milk cartons are recyclable. When you make it complicated to recycle something (such as requiring to take it apart) then rates go down.

Honestly what I wish they would do is to sell milk in the same bag-in-a-box with a spigot arrangement that they do for cheap wine. The milk would stay fresher longer because it never gets exposed to air as when the bottle is opened.

[cabinetmaniac]

02:00 PM on 03/03/2010

Plastic is the worst possible food container.

Anything that reduces plastic in the world is much greener and much healthier.

:-]

[crisgenovese]

06:00 PM on 03/04/2010

What?! Laminated milk and juice cartons are not recyclable! Whenever you laminate paper and plastic together it makes the paper very difficult to extract and re-pulp. It takes a special facility and a lot of energy to try and separate these layers and re-pulp the paper. My understanding is that it's not worth the effort. The vast majority of these cartons end up in the landfill (99%). I'm surprised how few people seem to realize this!

[DRaymond]

04:28 AM on 03/05/2010

Perhaps I should have been more specific. I was speaking of all-plastic milk jugs.

[john frodo]

11:16 AM on 03/03/2010

Canadian Milk bags rule!

[Suntio]

11:12 AM on 03/03/2010

THIS is progress? Get back to me when they sell it in plastic bags without the outer packaging or make refillable glass bottles that you can refill with milk at the store.

[Sam Smith]

11:17 AM on 03/03/2010

I have been buying milk in plastic bags WITHOUT THE CARTON for 15 years now. First in Canada and now in the Nehterlands. I just guessed they were everywhere as an option. Wow, you need to catch up or move....;-D

[Sam Smith]

11:19 AM on 03/03/2010

And BTW, here in the Nederlands, there are still glass bottles (with a hefty deposit) as an option.

[KIVPossum]

02:35 PM on 03/03/2010

In Moldova no glass. You can buy in cartons at about twice the price. Shows how much it costs to produce and work with a carton vs. a bag.

[rougebaisers]

09:41 AM on 03/03/2010

You know, I am looking at a carton of paper towels that just was delivered, and each roll of paper towels is sealed in plastic.......Why?

[holyhandgrenaid]

09:36 AM on 03/03/2010

I live in Canada right now, and I have to say, milk in a bag (a 5 liter sack containing 3 1.33 liter bags) is sooo much better. Because you open less of it at a time, it keeps longer, and produces much less garbage (the outer sack is reusable as a lunch bag or something like that too.

A much better idea than this bag in a bottle approach, which is too much packaging by the looks of it

[LastAngryWoman]

09:51 AM on 03/03/2010

Canadian here. When bagged milk first came out (I am that old), I was skeptical. (old dog thingee)

But I cannot imagine it any other way, now.

And as a mom, I must say, I enjoyed the convenience of throwing a litre bag in my diaper/carry bag on many an outing. Try *that* with a jug...or a carton even!

[Peets101]

01:40 PM on 03/03/2010

Heck, I remember "cream spoons", used to block the narrow neck inside glass milk bottles to separate the cream from the skim milk. That was before milk was homogenized.