Wine In Plastic Bottles To Save The Environment?

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Jul 27th 2007 at 11:04AM

Plastic to save the environment? I'm confused. The latest salvo in the battle to make wine greener comes from British store Sainsbury's which has announced they will be introducing wine in plastic bottles next month. They say the lightweight and recyclable bottles are more environmentally friendly and that they will not break if they fall on the floor. The wine bottles will look just like the traditional glaas bottles. They will sell two of their own brand wines, a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and an Australian Shiraz plus two from Australian winemaker Wolf Blass. It sounds suspicious to me, and also to Simon Berry, of wine merchant Berry Brothers & Rudd who mentioned that making the glass bottles thinner might be a better way to reduce carbon emissions. The traditional wine containment system of glass bottle and traditional cork seems like it is best for both aesthetic and environmental purposes as long as the glass is recycled.

Tags: green, plastic bottles, recycling, sainsbury's, wine