Not long after we heard about wine coming in either boxes or bags, UK grocery chain Sainsbury’s says it’s going to start selling wine in plastic bottles, as part of a trial.
UK consumers buy around one billion bottles of wine every year, using around half-a-million tonnes of glass. Reducing the weight of wine packaging to 54g (2oz) by using plastic bottles could reduce carbon emissions by around 90,000 tonnes, according to the government-funded Waste and Resources Action Programme (Wrap), which is involved in the trial.
“That’s equivalent to taking 28,000 cars off the road for a year,” said a Wrap spokeswoman.
Wrap will assess how successfully the plastic bottles can be recycled and will measure the environmental impact of the scheme.
It doesn’t appear to affect the price though: a 75cl plastic bottle of sauvignon blanc will cost £4.99. One wonders what the French will make of all this…
