The UK Wine Society, a member-owned community of wine enthusiasts, has commissioned some unusual packaging for some of their wines: flat-shaped plastic bottles, made from recycled ocean plastic, that are themselves recyclable. After conducting a study, the group concluded that using recycled PET in this form is more sustainable than using glass.
“Our packaging report showed that rPET bottles have a much lower carbon footprint than single-use bottles; they are also less energy-intensive to manufacture, smaller and less breakable than glass, so they can be packed more compactly, and are of course significantly lighter (63 grams compared to an average of 453 grams for bottles).
What's more, they say the plastic is inert and doesn't affect flavour, though they only recommend it for wines with a shelf life of one year or less.
