Picking up a bag of milk from the shop may sound strange but could become an everyday occurrence as a “revolutionary” eco-friendly milk container is introduced across the country.

Sainsbury’s is to sell milk packaged in a recycleable plastic bag across 35 of its stores from Wednesday, to try to reduce packaging waste. It will be available in 500 stores within a year.

It is claimed that the pouches, produced in partnership with Dairy Crest, will reduce milk packaging waste by 75 per cent. The launch comes after moves by supermarkets to reduce the use of plastic carrier bags significantly, encouraging customers to use “bags for life”.

Britons consume about 180 million pints of milk a week. At least two thirds of it is sold in plastic bottles, which began to replace cardboard containers in the Nineties. Campaigners claim that if all the plastic milk bottles in Britain were replaced with pouches, 100,000 tons of plastic waste would be saved from landfill sites every year.

The new recycleable bags are made of strong, low-density plastic material and will fit inside a reuseable jug. They are opened with a spike that pierces the bag and forms a no-leak seal. Once finished, the bags can be put in recycling bins in Sainsbury’s stores or recycled with other plastics at home.

The jug costs £2.49 and a two-pint bag of milk costs 80p. The pouches will be on sale across London and the South East from Wednesday.

Nick Gammage, from the environ-mental organisation Waste and Resources Action Programme (Wrap), believes “Jug-it” is a sign of increasingly green times. He said: “Retailers know their customers are looking for less-excessive packaging and products that can be refilled. They are simply responding to pressure coming from the current climate of growing environ-mental awareness.

“It is exactly the kind of innovation that we will see more of in the future, but the key test is the usability; whether customers will like it.

“Another innovation we think is on its way is having a self-dispenser in supermarkets, where customers can take their jugs and fill up with milk actually in the store itself.” Milk in a bag is the latest move by food retailers to improve their eco-friendly credentials after being villified for excessive packaging and food miles.

In May Marks & Spencer began charging customers 5p for each carrier bag while encouraging them to buy a reuseable “bag for life”. Tesco offers customers bonus points to spend in store if they reuse their plastic bags.

Although Sainsbury’s calls it a “revolution in milk packaging”, it is not the first time that British retailers have tried milk bags. In the Seventies, the Coop tried and failed to sell milk in bags. Sainsbury’s tried to promote the pouches seven years ago but stopped because of lack of customer interest.

In Canada, where the technology was developed more than 30 years ago, as much as 60 per cent of fresh milk is already sold in this way.

Supporters of the idea believe its time may have come now that consumers are far more conscious of green issues and their carbon footprint. After trials last year in London, Waitrose introduced its own version of Jug-it in February in partnership with Calon Wen, a small Welsh organic farmers’ cooperative.

Despite its failure in 2001, Sainsbury’s insists that a new and improved Jug-it will become the “default way” milk is bought and used in the future.

A spokesman for Sainsbury’s said: “The jug that was used seven years ago was a more primitive design. The format was popular and we now have a milk jug that we’re satisfied offers the level of convenience that customers will want – no mess, no waste.”

Supermarkets have put up the price of milk in the past week. Four pints of semi-skimmed milk costs £1.44, up 10p, at Asda, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Waitrose, according to the trade magazine The Grocer.

At the cutting edge

At first glance, the two-pint balloon-like plastic pouch looks as if it may explode if dropped.

I wonder how it passed the “extensive durability testing” of which Sainsbury’s makes so much.

After ten minutes of gentle handling in the Times office, the bag sprang a leak, which raised concerns that it might not even survive the journey from the shop to the fridge at the bottom of a shopping bag.

But getting the pouch into the jug, following the instructions, was straightforward.

The spike easily pierced the bag and it even poured with no mess.

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