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October 10, 2013
Why It's Illegal to Use Milk Crates for Anything Besides Milk
The International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA), which runs a whole website devoted to public education on the issues of milk crate misuse, estimates that dairy companies lose 20 million milk crates a year to theft. At about $4 per crate, that’s an $80 million loss per year. - - Modern Farmer
Posted by gerardvanderleun at October 10, 2013 8:30 AM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.
Your Say
It hurts stores too, they have to buy the crates. On the other hand: cheap furniture for college students!
Posted by: Christopher Taylor at October 10, 2013 9:02 AM
Exactly, go to any dorm room, take out the vinyl records, break them and take back the milk crates!
Posted by: Potsie at October 10, 2013 9:15 AM
Vinyl records?
What decade were you last in a dorm room? Pardon, what Century?
Posted by: John at October 10, 2013 9:27 AM
I realize that stealing something that isn't yours does hurt the entity which owns that item, however I have to wonder: What kind of justice system has the resources to have someone spend a night in jail--much less the 90 nights threatened on the milk crate--for the crime of taking home a plastic box? How many people have ever done time for milk-crate-theft?
Posted by: azlibertarian at October 10, 2013 9:37 AM
azlibertarian, evidently, not enough people to curtail the problem.
Posted by: Peccable at October 10, 2013 10:21 AM
Peach crates have a lot more capacity than milk crates. Plus you can turn them upwards and use for bookshelves. And in the end, they can always be used for firewood.
Posted by: LS at October 10, 2013 10:36 AM
Back in my day, milk crates were the exact size to store LPs. (That's Long-Playing vinyl records.) You young whippersnappers can see both items in a museum. I sold five crates of LPs to a collector for a hundred bucks a crate, and I foolishly threw in the crates.
"whippersnappers"? whoa, really dating myself here. Time to trade in the bell bottom trousers, sigh.
Posted by: chasmatic at October 10, 2013 10:44 AM
Make milk crates available for purchase for $5 or $6 dollars. That would winnow out the hard-core degenerate milk crate thieves from those who would happily pay a few dollars for an easy conscience. Milk crates seem to be so valuable that people can easily rationalize their theft. Charge a modest sum for them, make a modest profit, and upset the moral calculation.
I must be missing something, here.
Posted by: Mike James at October 10, 2013 11:44 AM
Mike, someone beat you to it:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=milk%20crates&sprefix=milk+crates%2Caps&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Amilk%20crates
Posted by: BillH at October 10, 2013 1:46 PM
You can buy all the "milk" crates you want at Target, Walmart, Office Depot, Ikea, etcetera.
Posted by: DHH at October 10, 2013 1:50 PM
@DHH: Yeah, but are they really the high-quality durable kind that the dairies use, or are they cheesy, flimsy chinese-made knock-offs?
Posted by: Grizzly at October 10, 2013 6:31 PM