Milk In A Bag

The clock started on my immigration process Feb 13, 2006. We had been very thorough in supplying everything that CIC (Citizenship & Immigration Canada) had requested. We, in fact, supplied more than they asked for as a 'just in case they want it later' approach. Everyone knows that government employees absolutely adore their paper.

So, according to the CIC website and their processing times (http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/information/times/canada/process-in.asp#perm_res ) I have a few months to kill while I wait for them to even acknowledge receipt of our application. This the time that I feel I can relax a little and explore my new surroundings.

One of the oddest things I have come across here is milk in a bag. I had never seen or heard of it before. Even now, every day when I look in the refrigerator, I see it, and I am puzzled by it. You can buy milk in quart or pint cartons, or even those single serving plastic bottles that you find mostly in convenience stores. If you want to buy a larger quantity of milk, you have no other option than to buy it in bag format. I have pictures here in case you don't believe me.


The concept is, apparently, you buy a bag that has 3 1-liter bags of milk inside. You buy a special pitcher and you place the 1 liter bag of milk into the pitcher. You snip off a corner of the bag and pour the milk from the pitcher that holds the bag. I suppose you could just pour the whole bag into a different pitcher, but the pitcher that is designed to hold the bag will not hold the entire contents of one 1-liter bag. Try saying that 3 times fast.

I debate the 'greeness' of this type of packaging with myself all the time. Which is better for the environment? The one gallon milk jug, or the bag of milk and its 3 smaller inner bags. Not to mention, the grocery stores only have plastic bags here; those brown paper bags are nowhere in existence here. So besides the milk bag, the 3 smaller inner milk bags, there is the bag the grocery store gives you to carry the other bags in (5 bags in all for what amounts to 1 gallon of milk). I haven't won or lost the debate yet: it keeps raging on.