Got milk? In plastic?

School milk: It's not the same old square you remember.

Departing from the half-pint cartons that have been a cafeteria staple for decades, the dairy industry is giving milk containers a "cool" new makeover to encourage students to drink more. Delaware school nutritionists, already embroiled in a dietary battle against childhood obesity, say the effort is working.

Students say the plastic bottles keep the milk colder and even more flavorful. And if there are any pangs of nostalgia for those half-pint cardboard cartons that have squatted on cafeteria trays for generations, few are voicing them.

Zach Jolley, 12, a sixth-grader at Stanton Middle School, couldn't be happier to drink his chocolate milk in the new resealable 8-ounce bottles offered at his school.

"I like the new ones, because the old ones you would peel them [open], and if you knocked them over, they would spill," he said. "This has more chocolate, and you can shake them up to get the chocolate stirred around. I usually drink one -- now I drink two."

Stanton Middle's Red Clay Consolidated School District joined four other Delaware districts that switched to plastic milk bottles this year -- even though they cost several cents more than the cartons. In all, 11 of Delaware's 19 school districts have converted to the plastic bottles since 2004, with another two districts making the switch in some of their schools.

Sharon Brasure, acting manager of Child Nutrition Services at Red Clay, said students' satisfaction is evident in the amount of milk sold. Milk consumption went up from 105,000 cartons in September 2006 to 222,600 bottles this past September, representing an increase of 48 percent.

"I was shocked," she said.

'It's more in style'

After a three-decade slide in milk sales, the dairy industry started promoting the bottles about six years ago. The Mid-Atlantic Dairy Association, which includes Delaware, offered schools grants for new milk coolers as an incentive to switch to plastic, spokeswoman Jessica Pomraning said. Grants this year included $60,000 to Christina and $54,000 to Red Clay.

The push started after the dairy council and the American School Food Service Association completed a school-milk pilot test in 2002, providing plastic bottles with resealable lids at 146 schools, Pomraning said. They determined that milk sales increased by 18 percent and lunch participation increased by 5 percent with the bottles.

"Milk consumption also increased, so children were drinking more of the milk they took," she said. "We kind of live in a fast-food society. They're used to going into a convenience store, and they see all these bottles. It's a cool thing to drink."

Students on a lunch break at Stanton Middle School said they like the bottles' easy-to-open, twist-off caps that can be screwed back on between sips. They also say the bottles are better looking than the cartons, which were introduced in 1933.

"You can see through it and see what's inside," said Jazmyn Sykes, 13, a seventh-grader at the school. "It's more in style."

Although the plastic bottles cost Red Clay an extra 6 cents each -- an increase of about $13,000 in milk expenses per month -- Brasure said the extra cost is worth it because milk is good for the children.

"Our whole goal was to encourage children to drink more milk," she said. "It was lacking in their diet. We've accomplished that. It's an investment in our children's health."

But Paul Greene of Chadds Ford, Pa., who used to deliver milk to schools for a dairy, said it irritated him to learn cash-strapped school districts such as Red Clay are paying more for milk.

"To spend [more money] on plastic bottles to increase someone's milk intake seems ridiculous to me, especially when they're talking about cutting programs, and they can't do this and they can't do that because of the money," he said.

But Brasure points out that the Child Nutrition Services department is self-supporting and is not funded by tax dollars. Like food-service departments at other districts, it operates on a nonprofit basis, subsisting on cash-register receipts and reimbursements from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for serving well-rounded, balanced meals.

Children in Red Clay paid 30 cents for the cartons last year, but the price went up to 40 cents for the bottles this year, reflecting the 6-cent additional cost and an extra 4-cent boost because the price had not been raised in years, Brasure said.

School-district food-service departments pay more for the plastic bottles, though the exact price depends on which dairy supplies it. But Brasure and others said they can make up for the extra expenditures with increased sales, and they believe the cost will go down when more schools climb on board.

Bonnie Workman, food-services coordinator for the Woodbridge School District, said milk consumption has increased by about 10 percent since her district made the switch to plastic this year. Pam Gouge, a registered dietician who supervises food services for Brandywine School District, said its three high schools have been going through an extra four or five cases of milk daily since switching to plastic bottles in October. She hopes to introduce the bottles at other district schools.

"It's one of the best things we've done in a long time," Gouge said of the switch. "The kids absolutely love the milk. The kids think it's colder. In some respects, I think they think it tastes better because they don't like the taste of it coming out of a carton."

A cost to the environment?

But Greene, the former dairy deliveryman who now is a purchaser for another company, questions the effect the plastic bottles might have on Delaware's already overflowing landfill space, and cautions that their popularity might be fleeting.

He remembers transparent plastic milk pouches that made their way into some schools in the 1990s.

The containers were touted for taking up less space, and the milk was sucked out through a straw that could be poked into the plastic.

"Nobody has them now," he said of their use at schools. "They're nowhere."

As for the potential environmental impact of the bottles, compared to biodegradable cartons, Greene noted that there is no widespread recycling effort under way to collect them.

Workman, from Woodbridge district, agrees.

"They're bulky, and it's a waste of space for us," she said of the bottles. "We have a couple of teachers who are working on a recycling program for us. We have an average 3,000 bottles a day that could be recycled. I think the state of Delaware should do something. I think we're way behind on this."

Bev Harp, supervisor in Child Nutrition Services for the Milford School District, also would like to see something done to keep the plastic bottles out of landfills.

"It would be great, because we need to take care of our environment for our kids and our grandkids," said Harp, whose district converted almost entirely to the plastic bottles in 2004. "I think it would be good if the whole state of Delaware did it."