Environmental experts have given a cautious welcome to a radical new home delivery system which is hoped will cut food miles, cut plastic waste and ensure more efficient use of resources.

Under the new system, households will subscribe to a home delivery service for everyday staples such milk, soft drinks and perishable goods (like eggs and bread). Drinks are delivered every morning in glass bottles which are collected, cleaned and refilled in what some consider to be a highly convenient form of industrial scale deposit-return.

Like all innovations, it started in the Nordic countries. In the highly progressive Swedish municipality of Ljungberg, milk is processed locally then delivered home-to-home every morning in a specially-designed battery-powered electric vehicle called a “Mjölkflottör”.

As a result, residents cut their use of cars to make short trips to the local supermarket, while households know precisely where their produce is coming from, supporting local supply chains, farmers and jobs in the process.

Academics from Wales were given a £250,000 grant to study this exciting never-before-seen concept in more detail, while a soft drinks company has already expressed interest in establishing a manufacturing and distribution hub in the Rhondda to serve southern Wales.

As this is a completely new and untested, the Welsh Government have put the plans out for at ten years of consultation, consideration, deliberation and masturbation by a specially appointed task-and-finish group.