No, really? Did someone read my question here on the Blog?
by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
A southern Oregon winery is trying to reduce waste by spearheading "The Rinse Project". The idea is for winemakers to re-use bottles instead of recycling them curbside.
Much of the carbon footprint of the wine industry comes from its bottles.
According to Barbara Steele, co-owner of Cowhorn Winery, as much as 90 percent of wine bottles end up in landfills… and, surprisingly, on roadways. That’s why Cowhorn is starting to send her winery’s used bottles to Wine Bottle Renew, a company that uses a high-tech method of cleaning glassware and providing the newly cleaned bottles for wineries to reuse. According to the Wine Bottle Renew website, “Every case of Renew wine bottles will offset the equivalent C02 emissions of 138 gallons of gasoline.”
Steele’s behind the environmental mission of Wine Bottle Renew and as such, is not just making efforts for Cowhorn – she’s also encouraging other wineries to start considering quitting the curbside recycle habit in favor of reusing their bottles. For her, the logic is simple: “We’re going to be able to lessen our energy footprint and at the same time spend less time worrying about glassware so we can spend more time making fine wine.”
This is absolutely great news that someone has actually taken heed of this and is tackling this issue and what can be done with wine bottles surely can also be done with glass jars and such. Why are we not, therefore, doing it?
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