When I moved to the US I was amazed that there were no bags of milk in the grocery stores here. Ten years later, it seems that is being raised as a great idea. See Slashfood and Wikipedia for descriptions and pictures.
The articles I've read point out that a thin plastic bag is a huge environmental improvement over milk jugs, that countries around the world have been doing this for years and that, for the most part, it is much more convenient. Unless you are one of the posters that can't handle cutting a corner off a milk bag without spillage. The stores I frequented in Toronto actually sold a little cutting tool to help with that problem.
What I didn't see in any of the articles was something I consider the most convenient part of bagged milk--that you can freeze it! Typically, I'd buy a 3-pack, with each bag being just over a litre (or a quart, for those of you who don't speak metric), slip one into the milk pitcher and toss the others in the freezer. That lets you stock up on milk when it is on sale and prevents running to the store because you are out. Unless of course you forget to note you're taking the last bag out of the freezer.
Because this option hasn't been available to me down here, I'm constantly pouring bad milk down the drain, something I rarely had to do in Canada. Sometimes, that's because the gallon jug was on sale for just 10 cents more than the quart jug, so now we've got a system. We keep a quart jug that we fill from the gallon jug and then the rest goes in the freezer.
If you've never done this, you're probably thinking thawed milk will be different somehow, either in taste or consistency. Not! It thaws beautifully and the kids have not noticed the difference. Trust me, if anyone could, they would.
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