July 21 2006
According to a Gomberg-Fredrikson Report released in Aprilof this year, California wine alone represented some 185M cases and over $16Bin retail value.
Whatwasn’t germane to that bit of information, but piqued my interest nonethelessis the amount of glass that 185M cases represents—some 2.2B bottles, if my mathis right. Billions of bottles … andthis doesn’t count any imports or wine from the 49 other states—just Californiawine.
Fiveor six years ago I was selling to a company called Saint-Gobain Containersthat was a leader in glass packaging for the wine and food industry … at thetime one of their major accounts was Mondavi wines. And, the technology project I was working on wanted to digitizeall of their wine bottle drawings so they could be accessed electronically andon the fly—saving a tremendous amount of duplication of effort and work.
Itwas a technology problem, but not at all inconsequential as the cost formaterials in the winemaking process gets heavy scrutiny.
But,not all companies like Mondavi outsource their wine bottle production. Companies like E.J. Gallo are verticallyintegrated and do as much as possible themselves in order to save money. An article that can be found here notes thatGallo Glass Co. produces 2.5M wine bottles A DAY.
Thisis all well and good, but the point I’m leading up to is about recycling.
Accordingto an entry on Wikipedia on container deposit legislation, or “bottle bills”—the legislation that reimburses consumers for recycling based on an upfrontcharge per bottle.
Studies also show that the recycling rate for beveragecontainers is vastly increased with a bottle bill. The US beverage containerrecycling rate was 39.4% in 2001. States with bottle bills recycleapproximately 78% while states lacking bottle bill legislation only recycleapproximately 23%.
It’s really a shame that a glass bottle would go into aplastic trash bag to be taken to the dump, when it can easily be recycled.
Ifyou live in a state that doesn’t do bottle tariffs, my public service messagefor the day is to simply recycle them—save them up and drop them off at a glass-recyclingbin. It’s easy and gets folks to besocially conscious about our consumption, even if it’s around a pleasurablepursuit like wine.
And,the cool thing is glass can be used over and over and over again. So, if you recycle your wine bottles andyour neighbor recycles too, you can be assured that your bottles will end up insomething else that can then be recycled. Wine bottle to spaghetti sauce jar to beer bottle to a jar ofmayonnaise.
In keeping with this spirit,and in advance of the Rose that you might drink this weekend, I rounded up ahandful of wine bottle recycled types of items in the event that you’re morecrafty then environmentally conscious.
A wine bottle guitar slide for the musically inclined ...
A flattened wine bottle platter…
A wine bottle candler holder ...
A wine bottle decanter and glass set ...
And, for the chic amongst us ... a decorative wall of empty wine bottles ... an aspect of wine appreciation we can all rally behind ...
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