Thursday
Jun242010
Does the milkman reduce your carbon footprint?
Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 10:41AM Jon M Bishop I've just been looking on www.milkandmore.co.uk about getting milk delivered to my house and after reading the details, I've made a few assumptions about the logistics of the business and if those assumptions are correct, then getting your milk and juice delivered in glass bottles is good carbon practice. The main assumption I have made is that when the milkman collects your empty bottles and sends them off to be cleaned that the cleaning 'factory' is local or in a local enough hub.Local is good for carbon
This would mean that the whole production cycle of the milk and OJ is in a closed local loop (except breakages of course) all being delivered by electric vehicles (this is not an assumption, I saw one this morning which started this whole thought process). The alternative which I currently subscribe to, and I'll focus on my OJ obsession, is to get four Tetra Paks a week of OJ delivered by a diesel truck from online shopping (which is still a good green practice but this could be better). So that's 12 packs a month that don't get recycled (by my council at least) going from wherever they are produced (overseas I'm sure) to the factory where they are filled with OJ to the shop where they are sold to the house where they are consumed to the dump where they add to the landfill mass. Now my 12 a month is not a lot in the grand scheme but you know, another million people start using the milkman and we are sitting pretty, so is the milkman! Tetra Pak claim to be carbon neutral but still...
And I'm sure they are but that doesn't mean that there isn't a better way. They are trying hard to get recycling of their Paks(?) throughout the UK but most aren't and anyway re-useable packaging is better than recyclable packing and glass is a lot less nasty than plastic! I strongly believe that keeping the production cycle local is one of the best ways of reducing carbon output and the return of the milkman is a great example of this. (Oh and by the way, I have no commercial affiliation to Milkandmore, I just like what they are doing).
This would mean that the whole production cycle of the milk and OJ is in a closed local loop (except breakages of course) all being delivered by electric vehicles (this is not an assumption, I saw one this morning which started this whole thought process). The alternative which I currently subscribe to, and I'll focus on my OJ obsession, is to get four Tetra Paks a week of OJ delivered by a diesel truck from online shopping (which is still a good green practice but this could be better). So that's 12 packs a month that don't get recycled (by my council at least) going from wherever they are produced (overseas I'm sure) to the factory where they are filled with OJ to the shop where they are sold to the house where they are consumed to the dump where they add to the landfill mass. Now my 12 a month is not a lot in the grand scheme but you know, another million people start using the milkman and we are sitting pretty, so is the milkman! Tetra Pak claim to be carbon neutral but still...
And I'm sure they are but that doesn't mean that there isn't a better way. They are trying hard to get recycling of their Paks(?) throughout the UK but most aren't and anyway re-useable packaging is better than recyclable packing and glass is a lot less nasty than plastic! I strongly believe that keeping the production cycle local is one of the best ways of reducing carbon output and the return of the milkman is a great example of this. (Oh and by the way, I have no commercial affiliation to Milkandmore, I just like what they are doing).
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