On Jul 1, 9:06�am, George > wrote:
> Nancy Young wrote:
> > I was in Costco yesterday and came across a strange
> > sight ... palettes of milk sitting outside the cooler. �I did
> > a double take to see that it really was milk without it clicking that
> > something was odd about it. �Odd enough for me to think, is that really
> > milk? if that makes any sense.
>
> > It's the new square containers. �Seems they cost less to ship, and use
> > less labor somehow, saving some 15 cents
> > a container.
> > nancy
>
> Its to maximize the amount of product that can be shipped/stored etc in
> a given volume. High fuel prices cause a lot of rethinking. I walked by
> the liquid detergent aisle the other day and they had some significant
> signage declaring everything is now 2x concentrated. Costs a lot of
> money to ship watered down detergent so now they are leaving half the
> water out.

Why not just buy powdered milk/detergent?
Those heavy plastic liquid detergent jugs probably use as much energy
to manufacture as to ship the product. The oil shortage is probably
as much from plastic containers as from transportation petrol.