PEMBROKESHIRE milkmen and shop owners have seen an upsurge in the sale of glass-bottled milk since the start of the year, thanks to campaigns to rid the seas of plastic.

The glass milk bottle is making a comeback across the county thanks in large to Blue Planet II, a nature documentary broadcast throughout the winter of 2017.

Since then, some Pembrokeshire milkmen have noticed their customer base rise tenfold.

“We have had a very big upturn,” said Richard Mathias of Mathias Dairies, Crundale, who delivers mainly to Haverfordwest and nearby areas including the Havens.

“David Attenborough’s documentaries have pricked at the conscience of people,” he added, saying many people were realising that a throwaway society was not sustainable.

Mr Mathias launched a Facebook page to promote his business in January, and said he and his wife were inundated with new customer requests over 36 hours after creating it.

Mr Mathias’s new customers are often young families between their 20s and 40s, some of whom never grew up with glass-bottled milk but are keen to reduce plastic household waste.

“Within their household they are helping themselves reduce the plastic waste. If they have three four-pint plastic cartons a week over 52 weeks of a year, that adds up – it is more than 150 cartons, and that’s just from milk alone.”

Ian Hunter of North Pembs Dairies, which delivers to Fishguard, has noticed a similar upturn in sales over the same period.

“The catalyst was David Attenborough,” he said. “We jumped from 30 bottles a week to 300 or 400 a week.”

Mr Hunter said someone had shared the North Pembs Dairies Facebook page in January, which led to a flood of new enquiries.

Tenby and east county milkman Tim Evans has seen more than 150 new customers ask about glass bottle deliveries in the last two months.

“I deliver to Tenby, but we are also now going out as far as Lydstep, Manorbier, Freshwater East, and Lamphey just based on new glass bottle deliveries.”

Mr Evans has also put on a new milk round going to Carew, Milton and Redberth to cope with the demand from customers.

Western Telegraph:

Milkmen are making a comeback: Harry Davies the Quay, with a milk cart he made for Pembroke milkman WAJ Skone. PICTURE: John Skone.

In Pembroke Dock, Dimond Stores started selling glass-bottled milk after a customer requested it at the end of January.

Now the shop sells more than 100 glass bottles a week, and asks its customers to bring them back into recycle them once they have been used.

Peter Robinson director of the Dimond Street shop said: “We have a real mix of customers buying glass milk bottles.

Mr Robinson said he sees customers of all ages now buying glass milk bottles, and thinks the surge is part of a social movement of ecological awareness.

“We have a lot of young professionals who are now aware of what plastics are doing to the ecology, I think that is where it has come from mainly,” he said.

Moves to reduce plastic waste are being made across the UK at the moment, with Aberporth recently having become the first “plastic-free” town in Wales.

The Pembrokeshire Coast National Park authority recently agreed to sign up to the Clean Seas Wales Pledge, a governmental agreement to do more to keep plastic out of the seas around the nation.