From glass art to milk cart at Lybster

LYBSTER may be world famous for its artistic glass studio North Lands Creative but a shop in the village is also helping make a global statement by stocking environmentally friendly glass milk bottles.

D&S Henderson's grocery store on the main street sells a special edition milk bottle by Graham's Dairy that carries just over a pint at 568mls and may be the first in the county to stock them since glass went out of fashion in the 1980s.

Apart from the obvious charm of the bottle's vintage styling, glass is now considered a more eco-friendly alternative to plastic and is widely recycled.

"D&S Henderson is the first store in Caithness to stock glass milk bottles in over 30 years. We've been selling them for several weeks now," said shop owner Donald Henderson.

Donald says he gets two deliveries a week and the bottles quickly sell out. Coming in semi-skimmed and whole milk varieties, the limited edition celebrating the dairy's 80th anniversary will eventually be replaced with a new label but will still be made in glass.

Donald said: "It will be my daughter's generation that will suffer the environmental consequences and anything that helps reduce the use of plastic can only be good. We sell cans of water too now.

"Even Carlsberg [lager] has stopped the plastic around cans by sticking them together with a glue."

The bottles have an added incentive for customers to take them back to the shop for recycling – a 10p refund on the empties.

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