CLEARLY BETTER - Tommy O’Donaghue, Head of Consumer Foods and Eimear Hanley Marketing Manager of Lakeland Dairies announcing the use of new clear bottle tops by Lakeland Dairies on all two-litre and three-litre cartons. Clear caps are much easier to recycle than traditional red and blue carton caps and help to increase the overall amounts of plastics being recycled.

Lakeland Dairies has continued its long-term commitment to reducing plastic packaging by rolling out new clear caps for all two-litre and three-litre milk cartons on the iconic Champion brand as well as for retailers’ brands.

The traditional red or blue coloured carton tops cannot be easily recycled into food-grade packaging so by replacing coloured milk caps with clear caps makes it easier to recycle and helps reduce colour contamination with high-density polyethylene (HDPE).

This is the latest in a line of commitments made by Lakeland Dairies to reduce the environmental impact of retail milk packaging. In 2017, Lakeland Dairies reduced the weight of the two-litre bottles by 10%. In 2020, Lakeland Dairies reduced the weight of the three-litre bottles by 4%. This was followed by the introduction of 20% recycled material into the bottles in 2021. The bottles, caps and sleeves are now 100% recyclable and are widely recycled in Ireland and the UK.

Separately, in 2020, Lakeland Dairies became the first-to-market with an innovative and pioneering paper straw for its market-leading range of VIVA flavoured milk. In addition to shaking up the sector with eco-friendly alternatives, the 100% recyclable straw has saved an equivalent of 20 tonnes of plastic since 2020.

Speaking about the move to replace coloured milk carton caps with clear ones, Tommy O’Donaghue, Head of Consumer Foods with Lakeland Dairies, said:

“Lakeland Dairies has a long tradition of innovation and serving the needs of our loyal customers while doing so in harmony with nature. We take our responsibility of sustainability producing safe, healthy and nutritious milk extremely seriously.

“Across all our two-litre and three-litre cartons produced for retailers as well as our iconic and market-leading Champion brand, we are playing a real leadership role in reducing unrecyclable plastic from the supply chain. As the blue, red and green milk caps currently need to be processed separately from clear packaging, the change allows Lakeland Dairies to improve the quality of recovered material from household waste and enables the new cap to be recycled back into milk bottles.

“As always, we still have the same great look and taste as before with the freshest of milk from our world-class dairy farmers but now we are even more sustainable. Look out for the clear tops the next time you’re buying Champion milk!”