As retailers and processors switch to more environmentally friendly milk bottles, there’s a battle brewing between packaging manufacturers over whose ‘green’ milk bottle is best.

Nampak Plastics will on Monday launch a six-figure campaign to promote its Infini bottle over the Eco Bottle of rival manufacturer Alpla, targeting milk buyers at the six major supermarkets with posters, personalised DVDs and emails.

Nampak claims although the Infini and the Eco Bottle promise the same carbon and weight savings over conventional bottles, the Infini has achieved this without compromising on robustness.

Nampak has shot a video, in which an Infini and an Eco Bottle are dropped from a helicopter at a height of 300 feet. The Infini survives the crash whereas the Eco Bottle splits. Because they have parachutes attached, Nampak claims they hit the ground at the same speed as they would during an industry-standard 0.9m bottle drop test. “This means the Alpla bottle would not even survive a fall from the bottom shelf of a supermarket’s milk trolley, let alone the average British family’s breakfast table,” Nampak said.

However, Alpla said it had not made a final finished Eco Bottle available to Nampak. “I do not understand how Nampak can give defined comments about it,” added UK head Malcolm Finch. “Independent test have confirmed the final Alpla ECO design bottles have better functional drop test results than the comparative Infini bottles.”

Competition between the two companies is likely to hot up further. Nampak MD Eric Collins said the milk bottle market was approaching its “VHS-Betamax” moment. “Within a year, retailers and dairy companies will adopt either Alpla’s rival bottle or Infini as their choice of bottle,” he said.

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