326 CITY MILK SUPPLY 



verts to an oxide that tints the glass. Other glass contains iron which 

 imparts a greenish cast to the glass, making the milk look as though it 

 was skimmed. Some manufacturers purposely give the glass a yellow 

 hue to deceive customers into the belief that they are receiving very rich 

 milk. Colorless bottles clean up brighter than those with a shade of 

 color. Some bottles remain in service long enough to become disfigured 

 with scratches, chipped or nicked and leaky around the mouth. Such 

 bottles should be discarded because they make a bad impression on cus- 

 tomers and because a leaky milk bottle is one that can be contaminated. 

 The greatest care should be taken that slivers of glass do not get into the 

 bottles of milk. The breakage and loss of bottles imposes a heavy tax on 

 the milk business. 



Breakage and Misuse of Milk Bottles. From replies by 40 dealers 

 the U. S. Department of Agriculture found out that a milk bottle lasts 

 from 6 to 60 trips, the average being 22.5. So with a dealer who delivers 

 10,000 bottles daily, if the cost was 3J^ cts. apiece and if he had to replace 

 them every 22.5 days, the daily expense for bottles would be $15.55 or 

 $5,675.75 a year. In so far as this loss is due to breakage it is unavoid- 

 able but a great part of it, perhaps the largest part, should rightfully be 

 charged to the extravagant and dishonest habits of the American people. 

 Bottles instead of being returned to the dealer are thrown into the ash 

 barrel or wilfully broken or are converted by housewives to their own use 

 for such purposes as holding preserves, groceries, etc. Part of the trouble 

 comes from the trade in milk in stores for the purchaser although he may 

 have had to make a deposit for the bottle, never finds it convenient to 

 carry it back or a surly storekeeper may make refunds for the bottles so 

 ungraciously that people are deterred from asking for them. In many 

 of the larger cities, milk-bottle exchanges which are usually operated by 

 dairymen who are the stockholders in the concern have been established 

 to reduce the loss from strayed and stolen bottles. Employees of the 

 exchange collect, carry to its plant and clean the bottles which the several 

 dealers have accumulated that do not belong to them and that pickers at 

 the public dump have saved. Junk dealers sell the bottles they have 

 collected to the exchange and some exchanges purchase bottles from those 

 dealers who go to the trouble and expense of bringing in the stray bottles 

 they have gathered up. Usually nothing is paid for bottles collected at 

 the dealer's plants but bottles brought to the exchange are generally 

 paid for at the rate of Y to J^ ct. apiece. The number of bottles re- 

 covered from the public dump is astounding; the records of one exchange 

 show that in the city in which it operated, from this source, 1,500,000 

 bottles were recovered in 3 years. Thus we gaily indulge in the cost of 

 high living. 



Besides being depleted by thievery and breakage, a dealer's stock 

 of bottles suffers from abuse. Milk bottles are converted to containers 



