Solution, or Mess? A Milk Jug for a Green Earth - NYTimes.com

In the long run, the explosion in commodity prices will be a good thing. Capitalism, for all its inherent problems, is really good at solving problems.

Solution, or Mess? A Milk Jug for a Green Earth - NYTimes.com: "The company estimates this kind of shipping has cut labor by half and water use by 60 to 70 percent. More gallons fit on a truck and in Sam’s Club coolers, and no empty crates need to be picked up, reducing trips to each Sam’s Club store to two a week, from five — a big fuel savings. Also, Sam’s Club can now store 224 gallons of milk in its coolers, in the same space that used to hold 80.

The whole operation is so much more efficient that milk coming out of a cow in the morning winds up at a Sam’s Club store by that afternoon, compared with several hours later or the next morning by the old method. “That’s our idea of fresh milk,” Greg Soehnlen, a vice president at Creative Edge, said."