The white wines are packed in colourless (flint) bottles by Packamama. These are made from Prevented Ocean Plastic; a high quality, food grade recycled PET material. The material is categorised as ocean-bound plastic, meaning that it has been found within a 50km distance of an ocean coastline, and would have been at high risk of ending up in our oceans if it had not been collected for recycling.
Unlike glass, the colourless rPET bottles by Packamama also have a UV inhibitor added that protects the wine from light strike. The red wines are packed in green bottles and both these and the colourless bottles have an advanced oxygen scavenging barrier technology that allows for a good shelf life for the wine – although The Wine Society recommend drinking within 12 months of purchase.
The labels are specially designed to work with rPET bottles and the recycling process and uses specially designed adhesive to make the bottles recyclable. The screwcaps are also tethered to comply with the EU directive on single use plastics and ensure no caps are left behind and the full bottle makes it in one piece to the recycling point.
The Wine Society has streamlined the shipping and bottling process, to ensure the transportation of the wines from winery to The Wine Society is as carbon efficient as possible.
Dom de Ville, Director of Sustainability and Social Impact comments: “According to our research, glass bottles account for 31% of The Society’s total emissions. 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. 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.”
“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.”
Santiago Navarro, CEO & Founder of Packamama, said: “We are deeply grateful that, following a successful trial last year, the world’s oldest wine club has taken this leadership step to permanently implement one of the world’s latest bottle technologies to reduce their emissions and contribute to achieving their bold sustainability goals. We are humbled and motivated to be collaborating with The Wine Society, and to see them supporting this move by offering these wines at a discount to glass, and we hope this serves as a catalyst for others in our industry to trial or implement innovations to slash their carbon footprint in a worsening climate crisis.”
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