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Wines Embracing Reusable Packaging

Once common in Europe, vineyards are embracing reusable bottles to reduce carbon footprint.

Reusable Wine Bottles

Long practice in countries in Europe like Sweden, Belgium, and even France, reuse in wine bottles is on the rise. According to SevenFifty Daily, a publication covering the business and culture of drinks, it has even made its way to U.S. wine hotbeds in Napa Valley. The European model falls in line with an edict from the EU in March setting a five percent target for wine bottle reuse by 2030, one of several moves to revisit and expand the reuse systems of the past. 

“When I was a child in Sweden, we had refillable wine bottles. Not in the Italian or French sense where you brought your bottles and refilled; instead, we returned bottles to monopoly stores, and they cleaned and refilled them like milk bottles,” says Erica Landin-Löfving, who previously worked for Systembolaget on global sustainability certification programs. “It wasn’t from an environmental perspective; it was just the system.”

With few municipal-run systems in place, infrastructure for reuse is being rebuilt in various ways, with Terracycle’s Loop setting the pace as one of the largest platforms for global reuse. In the U.K., Accolade Wines has partnered with Tesco and Loop to create a zero-waste circular economy for their wines. Conscious Container, OOM, and Revino are additional reuse companies that take the reuse model directly to the recycling systems and collect the glass before it is recycled.

“There is no resistance to reuse by consumers. There’s just a lack of availability, ease, and understanding,” said Clemence Schmid, Loop.

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