Dairies demonstrate best practice in sustainability

In the wake of a February stakeholder meeting, Arla Foods' packaging manager Richard Taplin felt the supply chain could feel pride in the progress it had made around sustainable packaging. "You look at the work we're doing, and there's some pretty clever stuff going on, in everything from technology to consumer perceptions," he said. "Five years ago, this wasn't even on our radar, and now it's an inherent culture."

He added: "People are looking at dairy from other sectors such as personal care or household and saying that there are lessons that they could transfer into their industry."

Arla has announced a redesign of its polybottles that will allow it to trim a further 1520% off pack weights. It has already cut 510% (depending on pack size) off the existing bottle design.

Meanwhile, work is progressing on meeting targets for recycled content. The February meeting was hosted by the Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP), which is helping to fund and co-ordinate work on HDPE recycling.

WRAP had earlier published a report on the tendency of milk bottle recyclate to have a green tint. Report author Stephen Lloyd, marketing and business development director at Systems Labelling, said research showed that the colouring was the result of green closures and labels contaminating the reprocessed flake. But caustic washing processes were also releasing pigment into the recyclate.

"Recycled content levels of, at worst, 30% and, at best, 50% should be manageable, provided that combined solutions are put in place," said Lloyd.

One conclusion is that lighter masterbatch tints should be used on bottle closures. According to Arla's Taplin, WRAP has had positive responses from all but two retailers.