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CLIMATE

Danish company to scrap plastic caps from millions of organic milk cartons

Dairy giant Arla is to stop using plastic screw tops on its one-litre organic milk cartons.

Danish company to scrap plastic caps from millions of organic milk cartons
Photo: Andrew Kelly/Reuters/Ritzau Scanpix

The decision by the company is part of an effort to reduce CO2 emissions, it said in a statement.

Much of Arla’s packaging – including the one-litre organic milk cartons – is already produced from renewable materials such as plants and trees.

By dropping the plastic caps, the company says it can reduce the CO2 footprint of each carton by 30 percent.

Consumers buy 74 million cartons a year of the product from which the plastic packaging component is set to be removed. Each individual plastic cap is responsible for emissions of 10 grams of CO2, according to Arla.

As such the emissions saving on the caps could reach 740 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually. The figures are based on emissions measured during the period October 2019 to September 2020.

Arla has previously declared its ambition to achieve CO2-neutral operations by 2050.

READ ALSO: Danish dairy giant wants CO2-neutral milk production by 2050

“We and our farmers have an ambitious target of becoming CO2 neutral, and we are reducing are emissions on an ongoing basis,” Arla Denmark country director Helle Müller Petersen said in the statement.

“Part of that work is to reduce the CO2 emissions from our packaging, for example by reducing the use of plastic,” Petersen added.

“It’s therefore an active choice for us to remove the screw top from the organic milk,” she said.

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CLIMATE

Central and southern Italy brace for storms and heavy snow

Storms and snowfall are forecast across much of central and southern Italy over the next few days, according to weather reports.

Snow is forecast in the hills of much of central and southern Italy.
Snow is forecast in the hills of much of central and southern Italy. Photo: Miguel MEDINA / AFP

Italy’s Civil Protection Department on Monday issued ‘orange’ alerts for bad weather along Campania’s Tyrrhenian coastline and the western part of Calabria, while Sicily, Basilicata, Lazio, Molise, Umbria, Abruzzo, central-western Sardinia, and the remaining areas of Campania and Calabria are under a lower-level ‘yellow’ weather warning.

The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts is warning Italy’s central-southern regions to prepare for a blast of polar air from the Arctic Circle that will bring heavy snowfall, rain and storms, reports national weather forecaster Il Meteo.

The village of Grotte di Castro in the province of Viterbo, two hours’ drive north of Rome, mountainous parts of Sardinia, and much of the province of Campobasso in the central-eastern region of Molise were already blanketed in snow on Monday morning.

The department is responsible for predicting, preventing and managing emergency events across the country, and uses a green, yellow, orange and red graded colour coding system for weather safety reports.

An orange alert signifies a heavy rainfall, landslide and flood risk, while a yellow alert warns of localised heavy and potentially dangerous rainfall.

The current meteorological conditions mean that snow is expected to reach unusually low altitudes of around 450-500 metres, with flakes already falling thickly on parts of the southern-central Apennines mountain range at 500-700 metres altitude.

The hills of Marche, Abruzzo, Molise, Lazio, Sardinia, Campania, Calabria and Basilicata are likely to see heavy snow around the 500m mark, while areas at an altitude of 1000m or higher will see between 50-60 cm of fresh snow.

Affected parts of the country could see 50-60cm of snowfall.

Affected parts of the country could see 50-60cm of snowfall. Photo: Vincenzo PINTO /AFP

In areas where the snow is unlikely to reach, heavy rains and thunderstorms are anticipated, with rain forecast throughout Sardinia, Campania, Calabria and Lazio, reports Il Meteo.

Strong winds are forecast over the whole country, with the island regions of Sicily and Sardinia facing windspeeds of over 100km/hour and the risk of storm surges, according to the national newspaper La Repubblica.

READ ALSO: Climate crisis: The Italian cities worst affected by flooding and heatwaves

The north of the country, meanwhile, will see sun but low temperatures of below 0°C at night in many areas, including across much of the Po Valley.

While conditions are expected to stabilise on Tuesday, cold currents from Northern Europe are forecast to trigger another wave of bad weather on Wednesday and Thursday, with Sardinia and Italy’s western coastline again at risk of storms and heavy rainfall that will move up towards Lombardy, Emilia Romagna and Veneto in the north.

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