Packaging of baby milks wastes resources such as tin, paper and plastic. If every baby in the USA is bottle-fed, almost 86.000 tonnes of tin plate are used each year in the required 550 million discarded tins. Another 1.230 tonnes of paper are used if the tins have paper labels. These materials are rarely recycled, so they increase our disposal problems. The two most common disposal methods, landfill or incineration, cause their own pollution.
Baby milks are the end product of a number of industrial processes.
The milk and packaging materials often travel considerable distances before processing and, once ready for the market, baby milks have to be transported to the consumer. Ecuador, for example, imports baby milks from the USA, Ireland, Switzerland and Holland. Many countries import baby milk from thousands of miles away, causing considerable unnecessary pollution. Water, bottles and teats have to be sterilised before use. Water and the energy to boil it are normally easily available in the North, but this is no reason to waste them.