Sainsbury's Will Sell Wine in Plastic Bottles (UPDATED)
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 07.27.07
While it may not win you any elegance points at your next big soiree, serving your wine in plastic bottles should help burnish your green credentials. Sainsbury's, a chain of supermarkets in the U.K., has just announced that it plans on selling wine in recyclable plastic bottles instead of glass as part of a trial.
It claims the switch will reduce carbon emissions by slashing the weight of wine packaging — a plastic bottle weighs one-eighth as much as a typical 14 oz (400 g) glass bottle. This move could cut emissions by almost 90,000 tons according to the Water and Resources Action Program (WRAP), a government-funded organization. "That's equivalent to taking 28,000 cars off the road for a year," said a spokeswoman (though that sounds a little too optimistic to us).
Wine Society buyer Pierre Mansour is sceptical. "From a technical point of view, the wines will not keep as well in plastic," he says, "because it's not as inert a material as glass, so their shelf life is limited." How limited? Mansour would give the sauvignon blanc six months - "even in glass, we recommend our New Zealand sauvignon blancs are drunk within the first year" - and the shiraz a little longer, because the tannins in red wine act as an antioxidant.
Though it views the move as promising, WRAP plans on reserving its full judgment until it conducts a full analysis of the packaging's environmental impact and the energy use required to recycle the plastic bottle versus a glass bottle. Sainsbury's will bottle the wine in the U.K. and use bulk shipping, which also helps reduce carbon emissions.
For those of you who worry the plastic may in some way detract from the wine's full flavor, rest easy: "The new wine bottle looks exactly the same as a glass bottle, holds the same amount of liquid and doesn't compromise the quality of the wine in any way," said Barry Dick, Sainsbury's product technologist for wines, beers and spirits. So, yes, though we can't say that we wholeheartedly embrace the measure — we're still stuck with plastic bottles, after all — it's still a better solution than the conventional alternative...
UPDATE: ... or maybe not: as several of the commenters and Luxist have pointed out, just making the glass bottles thinner would be a better way to reduce carbon emissions. Also, switching over to plastic might be an easier solution simply because it's cheaper to produce than glass (just make sure it's recycled).
Another potential downside: the wines will not keep as well in the plastic bottles, and their shelf lives will be limited. According to Wine Society buyer Pierre Mansour, the flavor won't be the same either: "Plastic is more absorbent and will absorb some of the flavour."
Via ::Guardian Unlimited: Supermarket to sell wine in plastic bottles (newspaper)
See also: ::A Well-Rounded, Dome-estic Wine with Fuller Aspirations, ::Wine and Biodiesel Byproducts Combine to Make 'Green' Polymer, ::Protect our Earth Glasses Recycled from Wine Bottles
Image courtesy of sporkist via flickr
I dont see how this when looked at in its entirety is a good thing. For example the main saving's you get from the switch involves a more or less third party aspect of the product; the shipping. Which needs to be dealt with on its own.
You are then left with glass, a more or less benign substance that recycles resonably well, or plastic; a toxic, ocean polluting(see plastic islands in the ocean), gene disrupting, material that more often than not downcycles until it is sent to the landfill or ends up in the ocean.
Unless the container is made of a biodegradable plastic, really all that is happening here is the problem is being shifted from one to the other. Trading CO2 in the air for plastic contamination on the earth of which i personally think the plastic is far worse.
Here is a link to some information on the plastic in the ocean issue:
http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Ocean/Moore-Trashed-PacificNov03.htm
What a bunch of rubbish. The plastic is almost certainly made from oil, and the bottles are probably molded in China. The real reason for the switch has nothing to do with the environment- they did it because plastic bottles are cheaper. The greenwashing spin was an added benefit, and mostly likely bunk at that. The plastic bottles take up the same volume as the glass ones, and the wine inside still weighs about 750g. Most of the power consumption on a truck traveling at steady state comes from aerodynamic drag. Reducing the cargo weight 25% is not going to give a 25% increase in fuel economy.
I forgot to add: the reason for the greenwashing, of course, is that it helps build consumer acceptance of a change that would otherwise be strongly objected to in the marketplace. Nobody wants to buy wine in plastic bottles, but if you convince them that they're helping to "do their bit", they will.
Thanks for helpful comments, guys. We've updated the post with some relevant caveats and some alternate solutions.
If they really want to be green, and prove the benefits of plastic, why don't they set up a "store brand containers" recycling bin at the store where the bottles are bleached/irradiated/cleaned or whatever until they are safe to resell and then fill them with more wine? Then, they could save money on bottles, and the plastic get recycled much better. The problem with recycling plastic is that it always gets converted into something much different, like foam filler or polar fleece. Our need for plastic for bottles will remain the same. Glass recycles much better. So does aluminum.
Maybe Futurama was on to something with the 6 pack of Raspberry Champagne?
Another issue I'm concerned about is chemical leaching into the wine. How about phthalates (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phthalate) and bisphenol-A (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisphenol_A), a couple chemicals I believe are now found in about everybody.
I read the comments from readers with interest and bias. It is always interesting to see people’s reactions when tradition is tampered with. To the reader who is worried his plastic wine bottle will come from China he or she should know it is more likely that the glass wine bottles they purchase already come from China as the Chinese export this product which is in short supply in some markets. Plastic bottles larger than 200 ml don’t usually ship overseas but are made domestically. As glass plants are very expensive they tend to be few and far between so most glass bottles ship a long way. As to the gentlemen that contends reported freight savings are exaggerated he is right to point out that plastic or glass the bottles hold 750 grams of wine but he has not considered that the plastic footprint is smaller so it is likely that the weight savings in a shipment from the bottle manufacturer to the packager of empty plastic bottles would be about 85% lighter than that of glass and that it may be possible that the shipment contains 10 to 12% more bottles. The shipment also will likely be a distance of not more than a few hundred kilometers for plastic where glass could and likely does originate in another country. It is also likely that the packager is able because the bottle has a smaller foot print to ship 20% more bottles to the retailer. The reader is right that Plastics consume none renewable resources but does not consider that a glass bottle requires something in a neighborhood of 15 to 16 million BTUs per ton of non renewable resources and a glass bottle does not yield any energy if you wanted to use it as a fuel source where plastics do. (I believe in recycling PET not burning it) The fact is that even if you light weight glass 25% it has a greater environmental footprint than plastic. Lastly for those worried that the wine which they will buy in plastic won’t have the necessary shelf life have faith in the wineries who understand this and will market the wine which is proven to be consumed within hours of purchase point in plastic and will package those wines which are best consumed after some years in the bottle in glass hopefully light weight glass.