A BARRY milkman has seen a boom in business, thanks to Sir David Attenborough.

Along with other milkmen across the UK, Chris Jones has seen more and more people returning to glass bottles in a bid to avoid using plastic and alleviate problems highlighted in BBC One’s Blue Planet II.

The show featured clips such as albatross parents feeding their chicks plastic and mother dolphins potentially exposing their calves to contaminated milk which horrified many viewers.

Mr Jones, director of Jones Dairy Ltd in Dock View Road, said that since the problems that plastic is causing in the ocean came to wider public attention, he has seen both existing customers changing to glass bottles and new customers signing up.

He said: “I’ve got to thank David Attenborough and buy him a pint - of milk of course.

“There’s been a resurgence in demand.

“We’ve had calls and emails from customers who want to go environmentally friendly and ditch the plastic and come back to the glass milk bottles which we never stopped doing.

“In the last two weeks lots of customers have changed back to glass and new customers are saying, ‘can we get glass bottles?’

“David Attenborough has definitely had an impact. Seeing the clips in the programme was unbelievable.”

Mr Jones said he experienced the plastic blight first-hand near the River Ogmore estuary.

He said: “There was a staggering amount of plastic. It was unbelievable - a sea of plastic.

“I couldn’t believe how much was there. It’s happening on our doorstep.”

Mr Jones says he wants to encourage other businesses, organisations, and residents to cut down on their use of non-recyclable plastic.

The Barry & District News recently covered the story of Zero Waste Cardiff’s Aoife Blight, 33, who is looking to take her campaign to clean up Whitmore Bay beach to the next level by making Barry a plastic free town.

Mrs Blight won last year’s televised competition, ‘Let’s Get a Good Thing Going’, to win funding for her plans to encourage visitors to Whitmore Bay. The idea has proved a huge success, something she too has put down to the impact of Blue Planet II, and local businesses have been getting on board with her plans to turn Barry into a town that is more conscious about how it utilises plastics.

Glass milk bottles are becoming an increasingly popular alternative, as they can be rinsed, sterilised and recycled up to 30 times.

In a further effort to meet demand, Mr Jones is looking to source a ‘pop’ supplier that trades in glass, while they already supply fruit juices in glass bottles.

He said: “We are looking into returnable pop bottles in glass like in the old days.

“We should ditch the plastic for the good of the planet. Wherever anything is available in glass, don’t buy plastic.”

For more information, visit jonesdairiesbarry.co.uk