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WRAP, the UK's Waste and Resource Action Programme, has released their new 300g, super-lightweight wine bottle for any one to use (open source packaging?). Video and press release below. On pure looks, leaves me lacking, but you can't beat the goal of this package, reduce waste, reduce energy, reduce carbon footprint. Saving the world one bottle at a time. I hope it catches on over here in the U.S., but since the chains don't lead change, like the do in the UK, it might be hard to get producers to choose a bottle that doesn't offer them marketing potential (besides the green factor).

WRAP's full press release:

Amorim's ReCork America program continues to expand, this time into Washington State.

The Green Glass Company, out of Wisconsin is taking a packaged wine and making it a wine package (so to speak).

Ran across them while looking at what wineries are doing to recycle & reuse. Seems they take discarded bottles, of all types, and transform them into goblets, glasses, vases and more. They've got a patented process especially for wine bottles. Very cool.

From their website:

With origins dating back to 1992 in South Africa, The Green Glass Company has seen many incarnations and has grown into the largest producer of reclaimed glassware in the world.

The Green Glass Company strives to satisfy not only its recycling heritage but also its eclectic and diverse clientele.   With its patent on the unique wine bottle to goblet conversion process, The Green Glass Company team and its state-of-the-art equipment are at the forefront of the reclaimed glassware market.

Revered throughout Europe and other parts of the world as collectable art glass, The Green Glass Company goblets have even been chosen for the table of King Carlos of Spain, a former Mayor of New York City, movie sets, and, celebrity dinners. In addition to their popularity with consumers and collectors, The Green Glass Company products are quickly becoming a valuable marketing tool in the corporate world. Sandblasted with a company name or logo, the glasses not only provide enduring brand exposure, they also provide insight into a company’s awareness and commitment to preserving our resources.

The increasing popularity of reclaimed and recycled products will continue to fuel the forward momentum of The Green Glass Company.   The introduction of new product lines and innovative designs will ensure that the company continues to be viewed as the pioneer in reclaimed glassware.

The Green Glass Company challenges everyone to push beyond the average, strive to make a difference, thrive on creativity – and promises to do the same.

It is simple, yet imaginative.

It is conceptually elementary, yet technologically complex.

It is an ordinary bottle, yet an extraordinary drinking glass.   Cheers.

Getting some good press is a company I hope does well, Wine Bottle Recycling (A+ for name matching function). They are trying to adopt the European (and worldwide) model for wine bottle reuse in the US.

From Mother Nature Network:

Wine Bottle Recycling is the idea of Bruce Stephens, a home wine maker, who had one of those middle of the night epiphanies. He did some research and found out some interesting and disheartening statistics about used wine bottles.

• Seven out of 10 wine bottles in the United States end up in landfill.

• The U.S. is one of the few nations that does not collect and reuse their bottles on a large scale.

• In Europe, most wine bottles are used an average eight times before they are discarded.

• 60 percent of a wine bottle’s carbon footprint comes from the creation of the bottle.

• The energy it requires to melt the glass in the recycling process, along with the amount of broken glass that doesn’t get recycled, makes the recycling of glass bottles a lot less environmentally friendly than many people think it is.

From Recordnet.com:

While there are 40 to 50 such bottle-washing operations in Europe, the Stockton facility will be the only one in the United States, said Bruce Stephens, Wine Bottle Recycling's chief executive and "chief bottle washer."

It's a great location, Stephens told a Greater Stockton Chamber of Commerce Green Team San Joaquin meeting Wednesday.

California wineries produce about 300 million cases of wine a year or, at the standard 750-milliliter bottle size, 3.6 billion bottles. And 70 percent of that production is in the San Joaquin Valley from Lodi to Madera.

"This is where all the bottles are," he told the gathering of more than 50 people.

Initially, his company will receive unwanted bottles from the large-scale wineries - glass being discarded as excess or, perhaps, because of package changes or mislabeling.

Eventually, Stephens hopes to establish a post-consumer collection system for wine bottles, offering to pay for discards at "bottle shacks" or from waste-hauling companies.

Bohemian (a great independent newspaper from my neck of the woods) has the full scoop.

Radio New Zealand has a piece about Yealands Estates winery (cool website, by the way) in Marlborough, NZ taking a portion of its produciton to plastic bottles.

From the article:

Yealands Estate in Marlborough has just filled its first batch of sauvignon blanc in plastic bottles, which will appear on store shelves in about a week.

It believes it is the first time a New Zealand winemaker has used plastic bottles for wine and says the process is safe.

Yealands Estate owner Peter Yealand says about 10% of his sauvignon blanc will be sold in plastic bottles within the next two years.

He says the polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles weigh just 50g compared with a 500g glass bottle, which makes it better for the environment.

"I'm aiming to be the most sustainable wine producer in the world, and as part of our goal we look at ways that we can move towards achieving that."

Mr Yealand says a lot of energy is wasted moving heavy weight glass throughout New Zealand and worldwide.

He believes the plastic bottles also offers practical benefits for festival-goers and campers.

The bottles will have an 18-month best-by date, as oxygen could spoil the wine. They are not biodegradable, but can be recycled.

Wine critic Keith Stewart says selling wine in plastic bottles is commendable, as long as it is safe for people's health and the environment.

What to be reviewed? Don't put your wine in a heavy bottle, says Tim Atkin's with The Observer.

Is green the green choice for wine bottles?

Where does our trash go and how long does it take to get there? MIT investigates!

This is something I think about almost every time I take out the garbage--where does it all go? Am I putting the right stuff in the right place? And even if I do manage to get the right stuff in the right place is it being taken care of correctly? Well, the people at MIT's SENSEable City Lab are trying to help me (and us) visualize the "removal-chain" (the other side of the supply-chain). They, with the help of volunteer's from Seattle, have tagged 3,000 pieces of garbage with  cellular-based tags, from their website:

"The Trash Tag design is based on GSM cellular phone technology. Each time the tag registers on the cellular network, it records the tower IDs of any cell sites that are nearby at that time. The tag logs this data to memory, and periodically sends it back to the Trash Track server in an SMS text message. Software at the server uses this sequence of tower IDs from each tag throughout time to deduce the path taken by each tag."

It'll be interesting to follow up on this study and see what the real-world applications might be. The goal is 100% recyclability. I'd like to see specific industries sponsor their research--where does a case go? A wood box? The tissue that is wrapped around an expensive bottle of wine--does it make it home to the consumer or does the retail store toss it out?