Isle of Man Creamery is not considering the reintroduction of glass bottles.

That’s despite many respondents to a survey conducted by the company and comments on its Facebook page seeking a change.

In a statement, the company said: ’Glass beverage bottles cause the most environmental damage, including global warming.

’Reusing a glass bottle three times lowers it carbon footprint roughly to that of a single-use plastic beverage bottle.’

The creamery noted that if a plastic bottle were recycled, a glass one would then have to be used at least 20 times to attain a comparable carbon footprint.

A study titled Towards Life Cycle Sustainability Management, referenced by the Creamery, explains: ’Glass bottles have emissions of 150 - 440kg CO2 per 1000 litres.

’Whereas plant-based cartons have a negative CO2 footprint - that is, producing this pack actually removes CO2 from the environment.’

The negative CO2 footprint is achievable by using sugarcane as the base for the plastic containers the milk is currently bottled in.

Isle of Man Creamery highlighted further issues with the use of glass bottles.

’The carbon cost of transporting the heavy and fragile glass and carbon used throughout the cleaning and sterilisation process’ making the plastic bottles greener,’ it said.

The company also cited necessary transport space as a factor, noting that 673,200 flat-packed cartons take up the same truck space as only 65,500 bottles and said that recycling options continue for customers across the island.

The creamery also has to be a glass-free site for operational reasons.

In the statement it explains: ’We are committed to accepting every drop of milk that is produced by our farmers, which is in the region of 26 million litres a year.

’Of this, six million litres is sold as liquid milk on-island, the remaining 20 million litres is then turned into cheese.

’Producing this volume of cheese requires us to be able to export and sell through other channels and comply with the industry standard auditing processes that are in place, which includes operating a glass-free site.’

Despite this, Cooil Bros Ltd, based in Port Erin do primarily use glass bottles.

Following the Isle of Man Creamery post on Facebook, Cooil Bros said the business had been ’inundated with messages and calls with questions about the use of glass bottles in our production’.

Its creamery has just over 80 cattle, which allows the business to delivery pasteurised milk ’to 850 doorsteps’ while about 65% of the milk produced is sold to Isle of Man Creamery.

In a statement, Cooil Bros said: ’On an average week we process 260 crates of milk (20 bottles in a crate) and we have to replace four to five crates worth a week, this gives the average bottle a life of over 50 deliveries.

’The reason for the replacement of the bottles can vary from it being dropped, chipped, thrown away (we have known this to happen) or kept as a souvenir.’