Hitting the Bottle or Hitting the Box? The Debate Continues
by Jenna Watson, Barcelona on 03. 8.07
The debate continues over hitting the bottle or hitting the box when it comes to drinking wine. We sought out an LCA that would help us understand the claims that Tetra Paks are better for our beloved environment than the traditional glass bottle. The folks at PRé Consultants provide a handy online LCA study search engine which brought us to this study commissioned by Tetra Pak and carried out by Franklin Associates in accordance with ISO standards for life cycle inventory. Results are summarized below but, Tetra Pak out-performs the glass and PET bottles in energy use and GHG emissions. The report evaluates three types of container systems for wine: paperboard containers, glass bottles, and PET bottles. The paperboard containers (which are composed of a laminate of paperboard, aluminum, and polyolefin resins) are manufactured by Tetra Pak and include the Tetra Brik™ and Tetra Prisma™. The secondary and tertiary packaging (such as corrugated boxes) used for transporting filled containers from the winery to a distribution center are also included.
As we mentioned above this is an LCI. What does that mean, you ask?
A life cycle inventory (LCI) is an environmental profile that expresses environmental burdens from the perspective of energy consumption, solid waste generation, atmospheric emissions, and waterborne emissions.
The functional unit used to compare the container types is the delivery of 1000 L of wine. That’s quite the party (that’s 111 cases of bottled wine or 1332 – 750 mL bottles). According to this study we should be drinking our wine from Tetra Paks and not glass bottles if we are concerned about GHG emissions and energy requirements!! This also indicates that single-serving containers are worse (as we all should know) than multi-serving containers. However – it also means that if we do buy the wine in boxes then we need to RECYCLE said boxes. Otherwise we’re not helping out. Check out the graph below which shows us the total energy and GHG emissions for the multi-serving wine containers for the US and Canada. You can see from shear numbers that the bottle uses much more energy and emits more GHGs than the Tetra Pak or PET options.
This LCI analysis includes the following five steps for each container system: 1. Production of the container materials, which includes all steps from the extraction of raw materials through the production of the component materials of the containers. 2. Fabrication of the container systems from their component materials. 3. Transportation of empty containers from the container producer to a winery. 4. Transportation of filled containers from the winery to a distribution center. (The subsequent transportation from distribution center to retailer is not included in this analysis due to a lack of data as well as the assumption that such a transportation step is negligible in comparison to upstream transportation steps.) 5. Post-consumer disposal and recycling of container systems, including recycling, landfill, and combustion scenarios for the United States and Canada.
The above graph shows the total energy for each container type for both the US and Canada. The small variations per country are obviously attributed to the differences in the solid waste management breakdown for each. They point out that those do not significantly affect the energy results. Of the five life cycle phases included in the study (material production, container fabrication, transport to winery, distribution, and post-consumer waste management) it is the PRODUCTION OF CONTAINER MATERIALS that is the biggest contributor to the total energy use accounting for at least half of the total system energy. Energy from transportation didn’t contribute to the majority of the total energy requirements, however (as the study says), “due to their relatively high weight, the glass bottles have significantly higher transportation requirements than the other systems. The transportation requirements of the paperboard containers and PET bottles range between 7 and 12 percent of total system energy, while the transportation requirements of the glass containers range between 22 and 27 percent of total system energy.” Also note in this graph that single-serving containers are the worst choice in comparison to multi-serving containers - we all know this, but we will reiterate that point anyway.
When solid waste is compared on a by weight basis, obviously glass loses out, but when compared on a volume basis all the containers are about the same. In terms of GHG emissions, the glass bottles emit the most while the paperboards (Tetrapaks) emit the least due to their lower energy requirements during production. See graph below.
Overall, the study concludes that the paperboard systems have the lowest total energy as well as the lowest greenhouse gas emissions; the glass systems have the highest total energy as well as the highest greenhouse gas emissions. This is all despite the fact, or so the study claims, that Tetra Paks have a lower rate of recycling than wine bottles. Thus if they were effectively recycled these guys would outperform glass bottles.
This very complete 137 page report is available in the PRé search engine if you search for “wine” or “tetra pak.” There you can see all of the graphs and results with their explanations. Read more about the debate on wine in boxes here and here.
The life cycle inventory is a little biased against glass in terms of solid waste: glass is, of course much heavier than the PET and the Tetra Paks. But gross weight is misleading as a measure of environmntal impact: over time glass in the environment becomes sand, and glass is both reusable and recyclable. By contrast the plastic components in PET and Tetra Paks in the environment do not biodegrade, and end up, for example, in small pieces clumping in huge masses that float in the ocean and displace biotic carbon (i.e. plankton, etc.) and interferes with the near-surface food web. including deleterious effects on marine birds, marine mamals, and fish.
lexy-lou
I agree, I don't believe these tetra packs can be recycled at all due to their composition of multi-material laminates.
At least glass bottles sink to the bottom, are chemically inert, and provide homes for little creatures...
Not proposing we send all glass bottles out to sea but...
yeah, tetrapaks are better for the environment but wine is all about the taste. if you're going to be keeping your wine for upwards of 50 years, there's undoubtedly going to be some leaching from the container. this is useful information for wineries which produce swill, but unless they're targetting the lower-end of the market you don't want to be labelled as 'cheap'. -- however outside of the oenology department this is great information. producers of shorter lifespanned liquors will undoubtedly begin implementing this soon. in japan you get your sake in tetrapaks from vending machines.
"yeah, tetrapaks are better for the environment but wine is all about the taste. if you're going to be keeping your wine for upwards of 50 years"
well, from an environmental point of view, wine that is kept for that long is marginal. The big volume is in wine that ISN'T kept for too long.
what wasn't clear to me (and maybe if i read the full 137 page report) was weather or not it takes into account the re usability? For example some places do beer store style recylcing (ontario now) of the containers, and bottles have an average reuse of 25 times(current beer bottle figures). Asuming wine bottles reach this level of reuse how does it fair against tetra paks?
taking this study for what it is, yes, from initial package production to its end waste it takes less "net energy" for tetra. I hear though it takes a lot of energy and effort to recycle tetra paks and because of this very few places actually do recycle tetra-paks, they just send them to the landfill because they are too complex. Glass bottles do get downcycled a lot too unfortunately but i believe it is the green or clear glass bottle that has good lateral recycle ability.
The other good point is leeching. Glass is really good for being chemically inert and basically being sand. Where as plastics in general are always best being avoided when you have the option. Im sure some of you out there have seen that los angeles times special on the state of the oceans and how "mermaids tears" (plastics) are threatening life in the ocean. (its very shocking and hard to believe there are two massive floating garbage islands in the pacific composed of almost all plastic)
The toxicity of the package should have some weight in a study such as this.
This clearly shows the problems with Life Cycle Analysis.
Glass is a cradle-to-cradle material, it can be recycled indefinitely. The system in which it functions should be designed to reduce the travel required for those heavy containers. Hooray for local Booze!
Tetra-Paks, on the other hand, are monstrous hybrids. They often have up to seven layers of paper, plastic and metal foil that cannot be separated from each other. At best they are ground into some sort of fluff for filler. It is impossible to truly recycle them.
We are running out of resources and degrading our ecosystems. We must stop thinking of things as disposable. Tetra-Paks will obviously not exist in a Zero Waste system.
Interesting. I do like seeing detailed analysis of the full lifecycle rather than a quick claim one way or the other. I do wish they had taken the extra step toward the recycling side of things. I suspect that the others are right and that the box itself doesn't recycle and that they would have lost out there.
Just to cast a quick note in support of the poor old glass bottle ...
Here in Oxford (UK), the council does not recycle tetra-paks and if they are in the recycling they will sometimes leave the entire box of recycling. On the other hand, for glass, we are not even required to clean it.
Additionally, for complete ease of use (and reuseability), I prefer wine bottle with screw-tops because then both the bottle and closure can be reused and recycled!
Do these values take cost of shipping into account? I'd guess the polluting effects of trucking bottles of wine halfway around the world add up quickly enough that they outweigh the polluting effects of the tetrapaks.
re: shipping
That's why we need a carbon tax on fossil fuels. Increase the price of fuel, and what do you get? More efficient shipping, more local production and more clean energy.
write to newspapers and representatives, we've got to make it known that not everybody is against a carbon tax, especially if it's done in a revenue neutral way (tax carbon, but reduce income taxes by the same amount)!
The debate over tetrapaks verses glass bottles underscores the need for a deposit system. In Canada 40% of glass and 85% of tetrapaks don't get recycled. I often find glass bottles in garbage cans and recycle them.
A couple of additional points in the debate to consider are: When glass breaks on our streets and sidewalks it creates a hazard for bicycles and pedestrians. Glass is very heavy and bulky and requires a lot more fuel to transport the bottles to stores and later to recycling plants or dumps. The LCBO's website says that it takes over 25 trucks filled with bottles to equal just one truck filled with empty Tetra Pak containers.
http://www.lcbo.com/socialresponsibility/french_rabbit_information.shtml
Growing wine grapes displaces cropland that was used for food.
Maybe the wine ought to be shipped in 55-gallon TetraBarrels and bottled closer to destination. I know it would never fly as far as vintners are concerned, but even 1L TetraPaks add up in weight vs. larger containers.
Nobody has ever commented on ill-effects of Aluminium in tera Packs? These cause huge harm to our biological systems, causing Alzemier disease and host of ailments related to brain damage and nutrient loss.
Avoid tera Packs for your own good!
Cheers
Aluminum in Tetrapaks does not contact food. The aluminum layer increases the impermeability of the packaging but is itself completely coverd by polyethylene.