Morrisons is trialling a return to glass milk bottles as part of a drive to reduce its plastics use.
The pint bottles can be bought at seven stores in Kent and four stores around Sheffield, with the supermarket hoping to sell them across the UK.
At 90p, they cost almost twice as much as a normal Morrisons pint of milk.
Local dairy farms deliver the bottles to stores and collect them from customers once finished, to sanitise and reuse them.
READ MORE: Morrisons lagging behind rivals on healthy food
The Big 4 grocer claimed the eleven shops will save 40,000 plastic bottles per year from the scheme.
“We want to help our customers live their lives with less plastic,” Morrisons packaging manager Natasha Cook said.
“Reusing glass milk bottles is an easy leap for many people to make because they remember that this was how milk used to arrive on the doorstep.
“We’re currently talking to other local dairies and hope to be able to roll out glass milk bottles across the country.”
Environmental charity City to Sea, which yesterday launched World Refill Day, was positive about the trial.
“We know this move is popular, with three out of four people telling us they want more refill options in shops as a way of tackling plastic pollution,” policy manager Steve Hynd said.
“This is Morrisons doing not only what’s right for the planet but also what their customers are telling us they want to see.”
The supermarket has pledged to halve its own-brand plastic packaging by 2025, and over the last year has removed 9000 tonnes from shelves.
Around 83 per cent of its packaging can be recycled.
The news comes after a recycling row between the government and grocery lobby groups.
The Association of Convenience Stores (ACS) argued that shop owners should not be forced to handle glass bottles as part of a Deposit Return Scheme (DRS), which it claimed was dangerous to move and required costly reverse vending machines.
“We support the introduction of DRS in 2024 […] but the inclusion of glass remains especially problematic,” ACS chief executive James Lowman said.
Last month, the environmental audit committee recommended that the scheme include glass collection, as long as it could be “compacted” rather than “crushed”.
