Wine Breaking Glass Ceilings? Carbon Footprint Conscious Foster's Brand Opts For Plastic Containers

The romance of clinking wine bottles may soon be dead, but at least, the environment may survive! In a move to cut greenhouse gas emissions, Australian winemaker Wolf Blass plans to sell wine in plastic bottles, rather than the older, more romantically-inclined glass containers.

Wolf Blass on Tuesday launched its Green Label, offering a dry white and a cabernet shiraz in plastic PET bottles.

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The company claimed that the plastic bottles were aimed at satisfying the growing number of environmentally conscious consumers,

"We see Green Label as an ideal solution for a more sustainable alternative packaging choice presenting a lower greenhouse footprint," Oliver Pratt, the winemaker’s global brand director, said.

The Foster’s-owned winemaker claims the plastic bottles produce 29 percent fewer emissions, compared with conventional 750ml glass bottles.

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Wolf Blass engaged a sustainability consultancy to assess emissions generated by its Green Label products across all phases of production, from grape growing, winemaking, wine packaging and bottling, product use, disposal and recycling.

It found the plastic PET bottles came out on top, given they were recyclable, could be reused for other purposes and were much lighter and therefore less energy-intensive to transport.

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Environmentalists have welcomed company’s decision, and urged winemakers across the nation to adopt PET bottles.

"This is an example of taking green mainstream," said Katie Patrick of the Green Pages publications.

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"The main source of carbon emissions are in the bottle and the simple solution from going to PET from glass is an elegant means to cut nearly 30 per cent carbon emissions," she added.

Other benefits of the PET bottle are-the bottle can be dropped, thrown and hit without shattering but there’s no promises about losing your wine if an open bottle is knocked over.

The life of the wine, however, only has a shelf life of 12 months, Wolf Blass claims the quality and taste haven’t changed.

Source-ANI
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