Wine industry lightens up
CO2 emissions have been cut by over 28,000 tonnes, equivalent to taking more than 8,500 cars off the road, as a result of industry programme GlassRite Wine.
The project, funded by Waste & Resources Action Programme, has shown that bulk importing of wine into the UK and the use of lighter weight bottles can lead to major environmental and business benefits for the whole industry.
WRAP presented the findings from the first phase of GlassRite Wine, which involved several major retailers such as Asda and Tesco, at this year’s London International Wine Fair. The use of lighter bottles has resulted in glass packaging being reduced by 11,400 tonnes and the use of recycled glass has increased by 24,000 tonnes per year.
The second phase of work will run until November 2009 and will encourage the increased uptake of bulk wine into the UK – which helps to promote recycling and the use of lightweight bottles. The project will also aim to develop and trial a sub-300g wine bottle and assess the viability and trial the production of lighter weight champagne and sparkling wine bottles.
The wine industry has also taken to packaging wine into lightweight cans which has become a trend feature.
