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Old Wine, New Bottles: Putting Wine In Sustainable Glass

February 24, 2010

Image: O-I

When it comes to wine, glass is still king. Despite the growing availability and popularity of alternatives such as the Tetra-Pak, the bag in a box, and PET bottles in wine circles, glass remains by far the most popular form of packaging, accounting for 97% of the market. It's easy to see why: wine bottles represent tradition and quality, and they sell. Wine in bottles carries a certain prestige and normalcy that other packaging forms are yet to replicate.

But just because glass is still the packaging of choice for most wine companies doesn't mean we can't make this most iconic form of packaging a little (or a lot) more sustainable. Indeed, with wine bottles accounting for as much as 40% of all household beverage packaging, we have to. Thankfully, in the last decade, a number of exciting developments have been made in glass manufacturing, both in relation to recycling and the weight and strength of the glass itself.

Lean and green

Constellation Europe has an enviable wine portfolio including Hardy's and Banrock Station. As part of the UK WRAP (Waste Resources Action Programme) initiative, Constellation 'lightweighted' their bottles, re-engineering them to come in at 435 grams––60g lighter than the previous model. Other major bottlers, from the UK and the US, to New Zealand and Chile, are following suit.

So what's happening in Australia? In 2009, O-I, the largest manufacturer and recycler of glass packaging in Australia, launched their Lean+Green® range of wine bottles, in response to what they called 'the need for sustainable innovation in the Australian wine industry.' O-I, who are also using an increasing amount of recycled glass in its operations, began by lightweighting selected burgundy and claret bottles, reducing their weight by up to 28%. 

To do this, the company invested $3.5 million at its Adelaide plant to install what's called narrow neck press and blow (NNPB) technology. NNPB allows O-I and companies like it to use less glass, energy and water in manufacturing, while still making a bottle that, because of the better glass distribution of NNPB, is as strong or stronger than its heavier counterparts.

Image: WRAP

So what about UV damage in lightweight bottles? Wine in glass bottles can be susceptible to damage by light, and in particular UV light, and it's commonly thought that the thick glass of conventional wine bottles helped protect wine from damage. Not necessarily. WRAP's GlassRite Wine found that 'the relationship between glass thickness and the protection it affords to light protection is not linear,' going on to say that 'a relatively large reduction in thickness will be accompanied by a much smaller fall in protection.' (GlassRite suggests a number of measures, ranging from in-store lighting to the use of amber glass, to counter light damage in wines.) 

Customers and cost

In terms of cost, the lighter bottles are only marginally cheaper than their traditional counterparts. But they do offer real cost savings others areas like transport, where their lighter weight and slightly slimmer shape mean more bottles per pallet and less weight per load. The lightweight bottles are also designed for current filling lines, meaning a switch to the lighter models doesn't mean an expensive change in filling line change parts. As the wine industry invests more heavily in both recycling and lightweight bottle technology, we can expect to see costs come down further. 

Currently, Australians recycle 37% of their glass packaging, with most of this coming through kerbside recycling. Much of this glass goes back to the manufacturers in the form of cullet (recycled glass), which is then turned back into bottles. While exact figures are hard to come by, estimates of the amount of cullet in new wine bottles range from 40-80%, and sometimes even higher. Recycling glass is more energy intensive than making virgin glass; however its benefits lie in the fact that it is a "closed loop", meaning it removes the need for the sourcing of new raw materials.

So what do customers think? Research carried out by the University of Bangor has shown that the most important aesthetic indicator to customers is the height of the wine bottle––not the thickness. O-I and other lightweight bottle manufacturers have taken this into account, maintaining the look and feel of the traditional bottle that wine makers require and customers expect. While some connoisseurs still associate a heavy bottle with quality wine, we can expect these perceptions to change as more and more winemakers make the switch to lightweight bottles.

 

 

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