Milk plan would ditch plastic

Taranaki schools could be ditching singleuse milk cartons and plastic straws as part of an environmental move by Fonterra.

Fonterra Milk for Schools has been surveying 57 schools around the region on whether they would be willing to move from 200ml single-serve milk packs, which come with plastic straws, towards a onelitre bottle.

‘‘While our plastic straws and wrappers on our milk packs are recyclable, we appreciate some plastic straws don’t always end up in the recycling bins,’’

Fonterra’s director of

Carolyn Mortland, said.

The one-litre pack is more sustainable because it doesn’t use straws or plastic wrapping like the 200ml format.

Every one-litre pack removes the need for five single-serve packs.

But it does require schools to have their own cups or for children to bring in their own reusable option.

Eltham Primary School principal Kathryn Pick said although the initiative was positive for the environment, it would be a ‘‘little bit trickier’’ to manage as teachers have to pour the milk.

The school would use their own cups sustainability, and that meant teacher aides would have to wash them. However, it was something they were definitely considering.

Lorella Doherty, of Rethinking Plastic Revolution, said she often collected plastic straws on her beach clean-ups and they were extremely damaging for marine life.

Although Fonterra was making a positive step with reducing the smaller cartons, the one-litre Tetra Pak bottles, which were composed of paperboard, polyethylene and aluminium, were still hard to recycle, she said.

‘‘It is a really positive thing,’’ she said, ‘‘But it’s still Tetra Paks which aren’t very sustainable.’’