Plastic milk bottles will hang on for a while yet
sir – When I bought my first house 10 years ago, I signed up to milk deliveries in an attempt to support local dairies and reduce plastic waste (report, January 22).
However, several problems made us give up the service after a year or so. Deliveries were often at or after the time when I headed to work. I would return to find warm milk on the doorstep. Milk could only be ordered in individual pints in glass bottles or else in two-pint or four-pint plastic bottles. Deliveries were only three days a week. The final difficulty was the price: 72p for a pint in a glass bottle, versus 25p per pint in the supermarket.
I would love to support this traditional service now that we have moved to a village; but with an excellent Co-op store two minutes away and open early and late every day, it seems unlikely.
Dr Ian Cowley
Melbourn, Cambridgeshire sir – Milk delivered in glass bottles by a local milkman has so many positives. The bottles are reused many times and then recycled. The foil tops are given to the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association. The person who delivers the milk has a job; the milk helps local farmers and the distance it travels is very short.
It may be a few pence dearer than supermarket milk, but it is well worth the price.
Frances Parkinson
Wray, Lancashire
sir – The resurgence of the daily bottled milk delivery has another important benefit besides supporting the war against plastic.
The milkman can notice signs of something being wrong, such as unopened curtains or milk not taken in: a reassuring daily check for the elderly, especially those living alone. Jo-ann Rogers
Stoke-on-trent, Warwickshire