New Wine in Old Bottles
We do it with beer. Why not vino?
Refill, not recycle.
[Editor's note: This is the first of Steal the Idea!, an occasional series focusing on practical green solutions.]
I don't usually have much difficulty in liquor stores; after all, the only product they sell is one of my favourite things. This time, though, I wanted to buy my red table wine in a refilled bottle -- Bordeaux in a burgundy bottle, oh my! Sadly, my search left me dry.
It shouldn't be so hard; after all, refilling bottles is a giant success story. Canadian beer bottles have a 97 per cent return rate and each is refilled 15-20 times in its lifetime. In Germany, Coca-Cola is sold in refillable plastic bottles. Prince Edward Island has required all carbonated beverages to be sold in refillable containers since 1984.
According to the most recent stats from the Brewers of Canada, a typical Canadian drinks 69 litres of domestic beer each year, of which 70 per cent is sold in refillable bottles. That works out to about 4 billion bottles each year. Refilling a bottle 10 times slashes the energy required per use to one-fifth of what's needed to produce a new bottle every time (and one-tenth of an aluminum can), which converts into a savings of 3,140,000 tonnes of CO2. And remember, that's calculated from 10 refills, and Canadians refill 15-20 times.
What's in a label?
So why can't I find wine in reused bottles?
Turns out you can -- in Europe. French wine bottles average eight refills, but let's temporarily forget that that magical place exists. The Husch family vineyards in California used to refill bottles, which they purchased from a bottle washer called Encore! (The exclamation point is, how you say, sic?) The problem for North American wineries, not shared by breweries or Europeans, is that they can't get their labels to stick. Old-fashioned glue works just fine for everybody else . . . but might allow the label to come off in the ice bucket. Heaven forbid you get halfway through the bottle and plumb forget what you are drinking! So, now wineries use super-sticky labels to pander to the pompous jackasses more concerned with showing off the label than getting a buzz on. That makes removal almost impossible and reuse that much more difficult.
Tetra Pak mentality
While looking for wine in refilled bottles I had the misfortune to see one of those shrill displays of wine in Tetra Paks; this crap is being flogged as a "Green Solution." It's junk like this that drives me to the liquor store in the first place. Tetra Paks are here to save us because they weigh less, so less climate-changing diesel fuel is required to lug them across the ocean from Australia. Dear God, where to start?
First, even if you can get the drunkards off their lazy asses to join the mere quarter of the North American population that recycles, few places recycle Tetra Paks. Second, the places that say they recycle Tetra Paks are liars. What does "re" mean? It means again. Can a Tetra Pak be made into another Tetra Pak? No. Tetra Paks are seven incomprehensibly thin layers of paper, plastic and aluminum. The poor suckers who try to recycle them use giant blenders to mush the paper pulp off the plastic and metal, then they need to separate the plastic from the metal. What idiot thought this would be a better idea than washing a bottle and refilling it?
But the biggest problem is actually the same problem -- jackasses. When did it become okay to destroy the climate and kill 50-90 per cent of living species so we could drink imported wine? How did it become possible for us to think we could have whatever we wanted wherever we wanted it? Do you really want to try to look your children in the eye and explain that they have to eat jellyfish gumbo because you couldn't resist that lovely imported shiraz?
Here is how it works. You can still get drunk on delicious drinks. The drinks may not be wine. They may be cider, perry, fruit wines, vodka, brandy, whisky, shōchū, tequila or whatever other agent-de-blindness you can come up with from your local foodshed. You might become famous on your block for the quality of your moonshine. These marvelous liquors will be packaged in refillable containers. Or, if you absolutely must raise your little finger with a glass of imported wine, it must be shipped by a sailboat. With actual sails.
Mark my words, the first North American winery to start marketing mismatched, reused bottles is going to turn a lot of heads. Imagine a case of pinot noir in stubby Chianti flasks, narrow Alsace bottles, perhaps a flattened Bocksbeutel. What chaos! What excitement! So, wineries: start refilling bottles, and then send me a case. I think I deserve it. And even if I don't deserve it, I need it.
Related Tyee stories:
- New Ideas for the New Year (series)
Twelve cases of thinking outside the box, all from people trying to make B.C. a better place. - Seven Solutions to Homelessness
Each is working somewhere else, and will save money and lives here.
![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
biscotti
10-03-2008
Bring back the stubbie!
The ol' stubbie beer bottles lasted longer than the tall neck bottles that prevail in today's market. Plus they are so much cooler!
SharingIsGood
10-03-2008
great idea
Great idea, Ruben!
And, I'll bet the Tyee readers consume enough wine to supply a fairly busy winery.
Stuart the Drone
10-03-2008
The Problem with U-Brew
The problem with u-brew is that you end up drinking way more because it's cheaper and always around. Isn't it supposed to be "reduce, reuse, recycle"? So you're probably not saving the environment if you end up drinking more.
I'm holding out for Glenfiddich in those brown clay bottles with "XXX" on the side. By the time it got here by sail, it will have aged 12 years anyway.
skeptikool
10-03-2008
No valid reason occurs to not reuse
To resolve the wine bottle recycling problem, I suggest making your own wine.
I never use the clearing agents but instead, when fermentation has ceased, I rack the whole batch into 2-liter pop bottles, then as it clears siphon off the top 3-quarters of each and pour all the balance together to again clear.
Some of the 28-day kits produce a quite-palatable product - nothing as good as my dandelion or blackberry wine mind you.
I don't doubt that wine bottles that were to be reused would be pressure tested - if only for safety reasons, so not reusing them makes little sense
rangergord
11-03-2008
Old bottles for new wine.
Want economical, ecofriendly wine? Make your own. It really is simple. Getting bottles though, can be more difficult than you imagine. You can buy them new for over $1 each. Convenient, expensive and no energy savings to be had. You could buy 30 or more bottles of new wine at the liquor store-very expensive and no energy savings. You should be able to go to your local bottle depot/recycling centre and buy some bottles but you would be surprised how difficult this can be. I drove hundreds of kilometres visiting half a dozen different bottle depots and recycling centres before I found one in hicksville Alberta that was willing to sell me some bottles. I was willing to pay double the normal deposit. Instead I was told over and over I could not reuse good wine bottles for my own use because they were personally liable for my being poisoned if the bottles were somehow not clean. I paid 20 cents each for 120 bottles last week from my redneck country depot where they haven't heard about liability BS. The secret to making good wine from a kit is to make sure you allow enough time for aging in secondary fermenter and the bottle. A few wines are good without any aging but most wines need at least 3-12 months to become excellent. You can make your own wine at home or a U-brew for between $1-3 a bottle. The quality of wine kits is largely determined by how much of the juice is real grape juice and how much if any is sugar. You are not likely to make great wine if you are the kind of person that can't stop drinking until its all gone. You need some patience and discipline to match your wine drinking with your wine making and allowing your wine to age gracefully. Do this and nobody will be able to call your wine "homemade".
woody
11-03-2008
To recycle or not to recycle that is the question
To recycle or not to recycle that is the question, particularly when it comes to glass bottles. I think its more feasible to send glass bottles back to the recyclers. Im of the opinion that glass gets more brittle with age, therefore can have a tendency to chip easy, which can harbour bacteria. When a bottle is emptied of its contents and immediately returned to the recyclers to be renewed, there is no further energy consumed on it. In order to reuse bottles one drives to a facility to attain them, return to your res, or wherever you do your bottling, all this utilizing energy( fuel, tires etc.). These bottles then have to be washed and sterilized this consumes vast amounts of energy no matter how you heat the water, additioaly the water is also now wasted. An example of wasted energy is displayed by rangergord who several threads above says, I drove hundreds of kilometres visiting half a dozen different bottle depots and recycling centres before I found one in hicksville Alberta.The energy he wasted is self explanatory. In B.C we have Consumers Glass who recycle of glass bottles at Lavington. Why not utilise them? Its the better and smart thing to do for the environment. In summerizing, as a safety factor, one can never be sure what has possibly been stored in used bottles.
The following is a link to Consumers Glass.
http://www.glassworks.org/product_stewardship/company.html
darcy.mcgee
12-03-2008
Don't be fooled...
> Prince Edward Island has required all carbonated
> beverages to be sold in refillable containers since 1984.
This was done as an act of political favouritism to a friend of the then Premier, and an act of protectionism.
If PEI didn't require this, all those fatty drinks would be trucked in from Nova Scotia and the folks at the bottling plant would be out of work.
There's no grandiose environmental point being made.
Good point in the article though. Avalon Milk would be a good example of why we should be buying more beverages in glass bottles and fewer in TetraPaks (which, when put in Vancouver's recycling system, are sent to Michigan.)
skeptikool
12-03-2008
We need to broaden the topic
The whole container, refund system needs reviewing. I think the topic even warrants its own thread. A big question is, why does the dairy industry get a free ride?
I see a scam to diddle those returning empties out of their just revenue when perfectly identifiable cans that are flattened are not accepted for refunds. A deposit HAS been paid on the items. The clerk will kindly offer to recycle them, nonetheless. Yeah, of course. Same thing applies to wine bottles without labels.
What the customer may not realize is that those cans are compacted before being picked up. It really wouldn't make sense to do otherwise.
It makes one sick to see a person surviving by what he can pick up on the street being nickel-and-dimed by multi-million dollar businesses.
rangergord
12-03-2008
recycling bottles
An example of wasted energy is displayed by rangergord who several threads above says, I drove hundreds of kilometres visiting half a dozen different bottle depots and recycling centres before I found one in hicksville Alberta.
In my defence I should add that I travelled hundreds of kilometres anyways in the course of getting needed supplies from my regions shopping centres. I did not make a special trip to procure bottles.
For those unable to see beyond the myopic lower mainland, please note that public transportation and adequate shopping opportunities are next to nonexistant in my area.
rangergord
13-03-2008
Reuse vs recycling
The majority of the population lives in the lower mainland but most of the province is beyond Hope and past Hells Gate. Reuse of our waste streams has been largely prohibited in our province. Private companies such as Encorp and numerous landfill contractors have been given exclusive access to our landfills, and recycling centres while the tax and fee payers (us) pay the bills. I am not allowed to reuse anything useful from our landfill or recycling centre, all under the guise of liability. Reuse is simply not on the agenda and Reducing is totally up to you. My wine bottle experiences were meant to bring some of these issues to light. I am currently working to get my municipality to stop sending all the food, yard and other organic wastes to the the landfill. They have an interest, as it will enable them to meet the 50% waste reduction targets set many years ago now. It will be a long time yet before organic wastes are returned to the soil rather than buried in a landfill. My guess is that any winery in BC who decides to reuse bottles will have to buy a very expensive bottle sanitizer, certify all their employees in the bottle washing standard procedures and pass along the high costs to the consumer who wants to use their dollars to save the planet. What seems to be a simple proposal will be red taped until it is a genuine burden.
Dave2
13-03-2008
PEI Cans
> Prince Edward Island has required all carbonated
> beverages to be sold in refillable containers since 1984.
FWIW, it looks like PEI's ban on cans is about to come to an end
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080307.CRACKDOWN07/TPStory/TPInternational/Atlantic/
woody
13-03-2008
rangergord
rangergord said, It will be a long time yet before organic wastes are returned to the soil rather than buried in a landfill.
Composting may be here sooner than you think, check out the link.
http://www.straight.com/article-135757/metro-vancouver-build-compost