Light weight wine bottles are better for the environment

Moves by industry leaders to produce lightweight bottles and begin importing wines in bulk has helped the UK cut down on its waste and carbon footprint in this area.

GlassRite Wine has teamed up with the Government over the last four years to help impose green practices amidst one of the UK’s biggest import industries. The UK is the globe’s largest wine importer, and moving towards more sustainable measures has enabled emissions from imports to be cut down significantly.

One of the ways this has been accomplished is by developing lighter weight bottles, which has spared more than 27,000 tonnes in glass. However, the major improvement to emissions output has been the innovative practice of shipping wine by the vat. Prior to this development, wine was bottled at its source, a practice that is being let go as it proves unsustainable.

Not is the wine allowed to be transported more efficiently, it has also provided an outlet for glass recycling within the UK. Within the past year, 200 million bottles of imported wine have been bottled inside the UK from the vats it arrived in.

WRAP has been funding the project and claims that progress has been made, but that there is still more to do. According to Nicola Jenkin, WRAP’s drinks expert, previous projects have shown that moving to lighter weight bottles and using recycled UK glass has helped to bring about drops in emissions from wine imports.

She added that measures such as these will enable international wine supplies to become sustainable reducing the industry’s impact on the global environment. She also highlighted the move towards screw caps, which has helped save the overuse of cork, as a significant improvement for wine bottle production.