A wine importer in Sweden recently launched a wine in a bottle mainly made from recycled glass. Is this something to write about? Yes, apparently, many wines are bottled in new glass bottles or in bottles made with only a small percentage of glass waste.
A bottle with as much as 75% recycled glass, like the Spanish wine launched in Sweden, is evidently unusual. American wine giant Gallo is a world leader at using recycled glass. Their wine bottles contain an average of 45% recycled glass.
To recycle glass is, of course, a good deed for the environment because less energy is required to melt recycled glass than make new glass. Glass is also infinitely recyclable without losing any of its quality.
Verallia, a large glass manufacturer, says that by adding 10% glass waste in the production, CO2 emissions from the glass furnace are reduced by 5% and energy consumption by 2.5%. You can calculate the environmental benefits if you add more glass waste.
Read more: hermanssonco and verallia.