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The Wine Society makes plastic bottle range permanent
Following its recent trials of alternative packaging, non-profit merchant The Wine Society has listed four wines packaged in recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET) bottles.
Last year, The Wine Society revealed that it would be trialling four wines in rPET bottles: The Society’s Gruner Veltliner 2022, The Society’s White Burgundy 2022, The Society’s French Pinot Noir 2022, and The Society’s Exhibition Fleurie 2022. The reasoning behind this was that glass bottles reportedly counted for almost a third (31%) of the company’s total emissions, and that lighter, flat bottles made from recycled plastic offered a lower carbon alternative.
Now, the merchant has announced that it will be permanently selling four of its wines in the Packamama-manufactured rPET bottles: The Society’s White Burgundy 2023 (its best-selling wine), The Society’s Beaujolais Villages 2023 rPET, The Society’s French Chardonnay 2023 rPET, and The Society’s French Pinot Noir 2023 rPET. Each wine is 25p cheaper than it would be if it was packaged in a glass bottle, according to The Wine Society.
“To achieve our ambitious reduction targets, we need to significantly reduce our emissions attributable to packaging. One way to do this is putting more of our wines into lower-carbon packaging formats,” commented Dom de Ville, director of sustainability and social impact. “Although rPET might sound controversial, with today’s technology and in the absence of a proper system in the UK to collect and reuse glass bottles, the recycled plastic bottle is a good option, with a lower-carbon footprint than glass and can be recycled kerbside at home.”
The Wine Society’s Sustainability Plan expresses the company’s aim to halve its total carbon footprint by 2032.
The bottles are made from ocean-bound plastic – material salvaged from within a 50 kilometre distance of a coastline. When empty, they weigh 63 grams – a fraction of the 453g average weight for a glass equivalent. Additionally, the flattened shape means that they can be packaged more efficiently, with more bottles stacked into each delivery.
“While we recognise there is a plastic pollution problem, it is not necessarily plastic itself that is the problem, rather it is what we do with it. This is why we are taking a practical approach; working with initiatives such as Prevented Ocean Plastic – seeing its benefit in our efforts on climate change, rather than taking a black-or-white stance that all plastics are bad,” added De Ville.
In order to comply with new European Union rules enforcing the attachment of caps to plastic bottles, the screw caps are also tethered to the bottles. The bottle, with closure attached, is fully recyclable.
Although the rPET bottles are made with the addition of a UV inhibitor in order to reduce the risk of light strike spoiling the contents within, it is suggested by The Wine Society that consumers drink the wines within 12 months of purchase.
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