An innovative lightweight bottle designed in Britain has helped the UK wine industry meet tough targets on reducing its glass waste and carbon emissions.
The 300 gram (g) screw cap
bottle - the first in the world – is 188g lighter than the average
wine bottle and 40g lighter than the previous
lightest bottle manufactured in Britain. It has been developed by
Quinn Glass through the Waste & Resources Action Programme (
WRAP)and is now being used by major supermarkets such as
Tesco.
The innovative design is a highlight of a four-year initiative,
GlassRite Wine, launched in 2006 by WRAP to identify opportunities for the wine sector to make environmental and commercial savings.
WRAP says the project has now achieved the targets it set itself at launch, reducing glass bottle weight by a total 27,048 tonnes through the use of lighter weight bottles and increasing the use of
recycled glass in UK wine bottle manufacture by 44,295 tonnes per annum. The project has also contributed
CO2 savings of almost 35,000 tonnes per year.
International wine supply chain
Nicola Jenkin, responsible for the drinks category at WRAP, said "huge opportunities" still existed to use more lighter weight bottles in the international wine
supply chain and she said the groundbreaking 300g wine bottle was showing significant potential in the UK alone for cutting glass waste and carbon.
"If adopted for all wine sold in the UK it would generate an annual glass saving of 153,000 tonnes – equivalent to the weight of more than 460 jumbo jets – and cut CO2 emissions by 119,000 tonnes," she said.
Sparkling wine
Jenkin said that even though the wine industry had met its targets for the first four years, there was still plenty of work to be done and Wrap was now looking at using lightweight bottles for sparkling wine.
"This research, which investigates bottles produced in all the major wine producing regions, suggests that internationally, almost 175,000 tonnes of glass savings could be made through using lighter weight bottles that are still fit for purpose," she said.
Bulk wine importation
Another key achievement of the GlassRite project has been encouraging
the use of bulk importation, where the wine is shipped over in vats
rather than bottled at source. This has cut emissions by 40 per cent,
WRAP said.
The design for the 300g wine bottle is now available to download without charge at
www.wrap.org.uk/300g.
Related news:
Waste & recycling news
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Related links:
www.wrap.org.uk
www.quinn-glass.com