Tough call, right? At least we're used to seeing wine in a box - and there are some boxed wines out there that are Not Franzia and better than Two Buck Chuck.
Treehugger profiled this wine maker in New Zealand, Yealand, who's trying to go for the most sustainable wine possible. He has tried using goats (they eventually ate the grapes) and guinea pigs (too unmanageable over the entire estate) and now mini goats to help remove weeds between the rows of vines. He's got solar and wind and uses pine needle oil as an herbicide. Still, shipping glass bottles all over the world = big carbon footprint. Enter the plastic bottle. 72 cases/pallet for plastic vs 56 cases/pallet for glass. And...
New Zealand's Yealand Estates says its Full Circle sauvignon blanc bottles are 89% lighter than 750ml glass bottles, which means they generate 54% less greenhouse gas emissions and use nearly 20% less energy to produce than glass.Interesting, huh?
However, according to a 2008 report that was recently released by the Association of Post Consumer Plastic Recyclers just 27% of all PET is actually recycled. I was surprised to find that, in the US, the rate for glass recycling isn't much higher, at 28%. (Note that the glass rate in some parts of the EU are much higher - 50 to 90%.) So, if this product is going to be landfilled anyway, why not use the least energy intensive packaging? You know, aside from those nasty phthalates that can leach into the wine, or the fact that plastic is made of petroleum, which is a limited resource.
The PET wine bottle? Not a perfect solution. I applaud Yealand for trying something new.
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