On this day in 1979, The Canberra Times reported Ivon Culver, manager of the Dairy Farmers Co-operative, had launched a drive to make Canberrans feel guilty about milk crates being stashed away in their houses and shops.
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It came as $50,000 worth of crates disappeared each year, or about 1000 crates a month in the ACT. Mr Culver said the crates had so many uses and appealed to almost everyone. "Shops, mainly butchers, are the biggest offenders... but they are used everywhere," he said.
Once households had enough crates, they were filled with rubbish and thrown away. A rubbish tip worker had told him that the tip was filled with crates but it was not worth the workers while to get off their bulldozers to retrieve the crates, not even for the 50c fee Mr Culver offered per crate.
Mr Culver thought the problem could be solved if Canberra people became aware of the problem as they be only too willing to stop paying for the crates indirectly through milk prices.
