Square milk jug
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| Launch year | 2009 |
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| Availability | United States, Canada |
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This article needs internationalization as this design is now used in Europe as well.
The square milk jug is a variant of the plastic gallon (3.785 litres) container of milk commonly sold in the United States . The design was introduced in the summer of 2008 and is marketed as environmentally friendly because of the shape's advantages for shipping and storage (better cube efficiency).
Square milk jugs are stackable and 9% more can be shipped in the same space. They also eliminate the need for milk crates, which are required for traditional bell-shaped jugs.
The technique used to pour milk from a square milk jug is different from that of a traditional milk jug. A Sam's Club representative suggests "tilt it slowly and pour slowly" and a dairy owner in Yerington, Nevada, where some square milk jugs are filled, described the pouring technique as "rock-and-pour instead of a lift-and-tip".
Some consumers have complained that it is impossible to pour from this container without spilling, resulting in waste of time and milk, in addition to water and paper towels being used for cleanup. Social media has numerous complaints. Gains for the producer have resulted in a loss for the consumer.
As of fall, 2016, after about 8 years, this milk jug has been replaced with a design that works much more easily.
Environmental benefits and cost savings are the primary stated benefits of square milk jugs, although there are noticeable trade-offs.
Because more milk fits on each truck, shipping costs can be reduced by half; this reduces the number of trucks on the road each year by 11000 (US estimate). Stores that required five shipments per week in traditional containers now only require two, resulting in lower fuel consumption. Instead of being packed in reusable crates, the square jugs are shrink wrapped for shipment; however, the hundreds of square feet of single-use polyethylene film "stretch wrap" used on each pallet raises significant new environmental concerns. If one pallet uses approximately 175 linear feet of film, a 40 x 48 inch pallet 6 feet tall will hold 80 cubic feet or 360 gallons of milk (given 4.5 gallons of milk per cubic foot), and require 1,056 square feet of film, equaling just under 3 square feet of film per gallon. Only around 5% of stretch wrap is actually recycled; the remainder contributes to significant environmental fallout.
Manufacturers claim that this rectangular design has cut water use by 67% to 70%, according to one dairy, since there are no crates to be cleaned; the absence of dirty crates also reduces the risk of jugs carrying contamination. There is also the reduced cost with no crates to be stolen: Pennsylvania dairies alone spent US$6 million replacing milk crates in 2005, mostly from theft.
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