GlassRite: Wine
GlassRite Wine is a WRAP supported project, which since 2006 has been working with the international wine community, supplying into the UK, to:
- Encourage the use of lighter weight glass wine bottles in the UK and at source; and
- Encourage an increase in the use of recycled content in green glass bottles manufactured in the UK; by promoting the bulk importation of wine into the UK
Why work with the international wine sector?
The UK is the world's largest wine importer, with more than 1.6 billion litres of wine entering the country in 2007. This equates to about 630,000 tonnes of packaging arising in the UK's waste stream. This is a lot of packaging, and is far greater than any other food or drink sector, and therefore offers great opportunities for environmental impact and cost reductions.
For this reason WRAP has decided to focus very specifically on the wine sector to encourage lightweighting and use of UK recycled glass through the bulk importation of wine into the UK. This work is being carried out by WSP Environmental, an international environmental consultancy who has advisors on the ground in the main wine producing areas, Australia & New Zealand, Europe, America and South Africa.
For a full list of all our project supporters and partners, GlassRite Wine: Project Partners Sept 09 (11 kb) ![[pdf]](http://www.wrap.org.uk/display_images/document_icons/pdf.gif){kind=icon}
Lightweighting
Glass wine bottles can vary in weight from 300g to 1kg. This variation indicates that there is much potential for reducing bottle weights, even by as little as 10%. Lightweighting wine bottles can help the wine supply chain to meet their packaging obligations, save costs and reduce CO2 emissions.
Many successful lightweighting activities have been supported under this project. To find out more about these initiatives with Tesco, The Co-operative, Constellation Europe, Kingsland Wine & Spirits and others click on the case study below.
Useful information:
- Case Study: Lightweight Wine Bottles: Less is More (192 kb)
- Info Sheet: Champagne and sparkling wine (67 kb)
- Info Sheet: Make or break (93 kb)
- Info Sheet: Glass Wine bottles and UV light (161 kb)
Using recycled glass & bulk importation
By using recycled glass (known as cullet) in the manufacture of wine bottles means less raw materials and energy are required, which can lead to cost and environmental savings.
About 80% of the wine imported into the UK arrives in glass bottles, of which most are green. This green glass needs a home – however, in the UK most glass manufacturers make clear (flint) containers. As a result, some of the green glass collected for recycling is used elsewhere, such as in roads, or exported to the continent.
Under this project, WRAP are supporting UK glass manufacturers to produce more green wine bottles, and to use a higher recycled content. For this purpose, the bulk importation of wine into the UK and filling in UK manufactured bottles is being promoted.
Useful information:
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