Bottled milk bows out

Press, 1 August 1989, Page 23

Bottled milk bows out

PA Auckland The Auckland milk bottle, aged 60 years, was finally put to rest last evening. There was a time when every evening more than 400,000 of this nowvanishing species could be heard clinking and rattling round city and suburban streets. But their numbers have dwindled. Last week about 10 per cent remained, now none. The glass bottle started to, fade in October, 1986, when the Government changed regulations to allow ■ milk to be sold in alternative packaging, such as the now-familiar plastic and cardboard. The Auckland Milk Corporation’s marketing manager, Dr John Bryden, said the change started a steady move away from bottles, in spite of a price advantage for glass until last December. Warnings by environmental groups of plastic

mountains and a cardboard container dioxin scare have failed to stem the move away from glass, Dr Bryden said. The president of the Milk Vendors’ Association, Mr Alistair Crewther, whose members were responsible for the nightly clink-rattle-crash, said he had an uncertain future without glass. He hoped a new colourcoded tag system for ordering home-delivered plastic and cardboard milk would be popular with consumers in spite of a 6c-a-litre loading for the service. “We will have to reeducate the consumer,” he said. A Save Our Bottles spokeswoman, Barbara Hammonds, conceded the patient was dead, but hoped for a public-led resurrection. “We don’t see it as the end of the battle,” she’ said, “but as a temporary setback.”