Engelsk A

One of the hardest moments in a new student’s day is finding a place to eat in the cafeteria. It’s
rushed and chaotic, and there are no assigned seats, so everyone sits with their friends. But a
new student doesn’t have friends yet, so there is nowhere obvious to sit. Osei had been through
this before, and knew there were two ways to do it. You could go in first and sit at an empty table
and let them come to you. That way you didn’t make the mistake of sitting with potential enemies,
or of trying too hard to push yourself onto a group. They got to choose you, which they preferred.
On the other hand, there was also the risk that no one would sit with you, that you’d end up alone,
a ring of empty seats around you like a no man’s land surrounding a radioactive dump.
    Or you could hold back, stand at the end of the line so people were already sitting and you
chose where to slot yourself in. If it was crowded there were usually only a couple of places left,
and the people sitting there didn’t have the option to get up and move and leave you stranded.

Last summer, Glenisk brought its organic milk on a journey through time as it re-introduced
old-school cartons with a cardboard spout that customers could open themselves. Gone were the

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plastic caps. [...]
    Some customers were pleased but many more were not. They complained that they had no clue
how to open the milk now that it didn’t come with the cap.
    So Glenisk then had to publish opening instructions on its carton and it released a video showing
people how it was done.
    Anyone who grew up in a world where spouty (not an official term) milk cartons were the norm
might shake their heads at the need for instructions for something so simple but the company’s
commercial director Emma Walls isn’t shaking her head. [...]
    The revamped milk and yoghurt cartons – which have also dispensed with plastic – have been

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facilitated by a broader acceptance across the industry of the need to do things differently.
    “We don’t make pots or cartons and we have to rely on suppliers,” she says. “We have been
banging on the door for a long time for more and better solutions. We are not there yet and we still
have single use plastic and we don’t claim to be the most virtuous company in the world and we
have a way to go yet.”
    She says that while the company did have to deal with some negative feedback about the new
milk cartons, it was a conversation worth having. [...]
    Walls says the Glenisk move will see close to 100 tonnes of plastic taken out of circulation each
year.