The Death of the Milkmen

January 10, 2006 4:11 PM

PlasticsFilter: When, exactly, did milk start coming in plastic gallon jugs?

I'd like as specific an answer as possible, but anecdotal stories are also welcome. I've emailed the American Plastics Council, and though they've provided me with many helpful links, none of them actually answered my question.

What year was the plastic gallon milk jug introduced? How quickly did it catch on? Did all grocery stores stock them right away? By what year was EVERYONE buying their milk in plasic jugs? When do YOU remember buying your first plastic gallon of milk?

posted by inging to Food & Drink (12 answers total)

By the mid-70s almost everyone in the US was buying their milk in plasic jugs. Previously we bought our milk in cartons. I know the milkman was still delivering milk in glass bottles in the late 1960s, but the cartons were far more common then. In fact I recall milk in one-gallon cartons, before the plastic jug became dominant.
posted by Rash at 4:19 PM on January 10, 2006

I don't know how it is elsewhere in Europe, but the gallon of milk doesn't exist in the UK. The largest standard retail container is four pints. (Remember, of course, that our pint is four fluid ounces larger than yours.)
posted by Hogshead at 5:11 PM on January 10, 2006

I don't think you want to ask the plastic people, I think you want to ask the milk people. I assume there was a point at which it either became more cost-saving to package in plastic, or because some sort of industry regulation made it make more sense. I'd suggest talking to Hood who are all into milk delivery history. I saw their exhibit From Dairy to Doorstep: Milk Delivery in New England, 1860-1960 but I can't remember enough of it to be of much help to you. Also, i assume you know this but everyone doesn't buy their milk in plastic jugs now. We have the carton/plastic option out here (big dairy state) and the co-ops still carry milk in glass as well. We had milk delivery when I was a little kid, in glass jugs, and I remember making craft-y things out of gallon jugs when I was in elementary school I think, so that would have been mid/late seventies.

I don't know if this would be interesting to you, but some clicking around led to this Supreme Court case where Minnesota banned the sale of milk in plastic non-returnable, non-refundable containers but gave the okay to milk in paper/cardboard containers. This was in 1977. The case was decided in 1981. I didn't have time to read the whole thing but I bet there are some good statistics buried in the opinions. Suffice to say that one of the determining factors in the court's decision was that there are, or were, many ways milk could be packaged and delivered besides putting it in plastic.
posted by jessamyn at 5:18 PM on January 10, 2006

Yeah, I agree with Rash, somewhere in the mid seventies. Seemed like big improvment at the time, but I'd guess landfill experts would say differently.
posted by doctor_negative at 5:49 PM on January 10, 2006

More information about milk containers generally can be found on this page. It's worth looking at because it contains citations for quotes such as this one "By 1969, paper and plastic containers made up about 70% of all milk packaging (Gallagher 1969:95)." I think they mean waxed plastic, but you could email or call the guy directly and I bet he'd have an answer for you. There are other misc net links like this powerpoint presentation that say that the plastic milk container was introduced commercially in 1964.
posted by jessamyn at 5:50 PM on January 10, 2006

I don't know about jugs, but you might be interested in the tangentially related Canadian Milk Bags (Mefi thread from January)
posted by Popular Ethics at 5:51 PM on January 10, 2006

If you're interested, Boston has a dairy that still delivers milk in glass bottles, both to homes and to supermarkets. They pay a deposit for returned bottles, but I keep one of their gallon bottles for loose change.
posted by cribcage at 6:35 PM on January 10, 2006

"Gallons Get New Look", Dairy Business View, 2/25/2004. "Fluid milk processors around the country are giving traditional translucent plastic milk jugs--the same jugs that have been around for almost 40 years--a new look." That would place their introduction sometime right around 1964.

"America's Experience with Refillable Beverage Containers", hosted at Grass Roots Recycling Network and prepared by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, says "In 1964, the milk industry welcomed one-way plastic jugs made of high-density polyethylene (HDPE)." Footnote references Saphire, David. Case Reopened: Reassessing Refillable Bottles. New York: INFORM, Inc., 1994.
posted by gimonca at 7:50 PM on January 10, 2006

I don't remember the plastic jug really taking over until the 80s where I lived. (suburban MD) Then again, we also had local dairies. And a milkman.
posted by desuetude at 8:53 PM on January 10, 2006

it's my recollection that my company stopped making gallon milk cartons at our location in the 80s ... i wasn't there then, though

however, they're still being made for ice cream mix elsewhere

thanks to hurricanes katrina and rita the price of the ingredients for plastic has risen considerably and dairies that had abandoned paper for quart and half-gallon sizes are now switching back ... although the poly coating on the paper also depends on these same ingredients, so we were having trouble getting enough paper

the industry had been moving to plastic as more marketable but now things are kind of up in the air
posted by pyramid termite at 9:07 PM on January 10, 2006

What year was the plastic gallon milk jug introduced? How quickly did it catch on? Did all grocery stores stock them right away? By what year was EVERYONE buying their milk in plasic jugs? When do YOU remember buying your first plastic gallon of milk?

My memory is that by the early eighties milk jugs in Canada were already sold as something sort of quaint/old-fashioned/retro. Which means by then they must have passed through to common stage and been out of use for some time.
posted by duck at 9:11 PM on January 10, 2006

Not helpful, but may be interesting: In my semi-rural, semi-suburban very small town, we had a full-time milkman as late as the mid-1990s. Probably 20-40% of people in the town had him deliver their milk -- which was in glass bottles.
posted by booksandlibretti at 5:44 PM on January 13, 2006