FROM: G. STANLEY DOORE 2913 Shanandale Drive Silver Spring, MD 20904-1822 Tel.: 301.572.4939 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
2007 February 13 TO: Valerie Antoine et al USMA Headquarters 10245 Andasol Avenue Northridge CA 91325-1504 Hi Valerie et al; Here's a draft of an article about going metric we talked about: "The pace of going metric in the United States is increasing rapidly, although subtly. Despite government, this can be found in containers in the marketplace and other products if you look closely. Some milk and juice containers are now hard metric. The photo shows a comparison of the gallon milk jug, the 4 L milk jug, a 3L jug and a soft drink 2 L bottle. The 2 L soft drink size was initiated by 7 UP back in the 1970s and has caught on by other soft drink manufacturers. However, milk containers are another story mainly because of government regulations. The driving force behind the 2 L soft drink bottle was to improve efficiency and to save money. 7 UP designed its 2 L bottle to save space in storage and transportation. 7 UP was able to get more bottles in the same amount of space on its trucks, yet the bottles still fit into refrigerators. Since the 1970s, other sizes in hard metric have appeared on store shelves, but not completely. Now, the new 4 L milk jug takes less space than the gallon jug even though it contains about a quarter litre more than the gallon jug. The black line on the 4 L jug in the photo shows the level which one gallon takes. The 4 L jug is essentially square and has a perimeter 5 cm less than the gallon jug, yet, it is the same height as the gallon jug. This means more volume can be stored and transported in the same amount of space as gallon jugs. The cost-effectiveness is similar to that of 2 L soft drink containers. Ocean Spray now packages its cranberry juice in 3 L jugs which are rectangular and are slightly taller than the 4 L milk jug. Conversion to hard metric and the International System of Units (SI) is an opportunity to achieve cost-effectiveness throughout society. It's not new. For example, the tool industry reduced the number of wrench sizes and associated fasteners from more than 100 sizes to less than 30. So, it's necessary for the US Government and state and local governments to get out of the way and allow metric only labeling and to remove other restrictions to allow improved cost-effectiveness. Regards, G Stanley Doore
