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Plastic wine bottles

Sainsbury

1 January 2008

In July 2007 we trialled the first ever recyclable PET plastic
wine bottle. The project was supported by the Government-funded
Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP).
The new wine bottle looks the same as a glass bottle, holds the
same amount of liquid and doesn't compromise the quality of the
wine in any way. PET bottles are also recyclable, but this may not
be their most important environmental benefit, because they are
also an eighth of the weight of regular glass bottles. This is
significant because of the sheer number of bottles of wine the UK
consumes each year - around one billion bottles, or half a million
tonnes of glass. Reducing the weight of all glass wine bottles to
the lightest available could reduce carbon emissions by around
90,000 tonnes, according to WRAP, because of the load removed from
petrol-fuelled transportation vehicles.
Our PET wine is bottled in the UK rather than at source, which
means nearly twice the amount of wine can be transported per
container. Bulk shipping also reduces the environmental impact of
transportation, which again will reduce the impact of CO2 emissions.