High street favourite Sainsbury’s is testing public reaction to plastic wine bottles in a trial in its stores nationwide. The PET plastic wine bottles go on sale in early August and will be available in two varieties, a New Zealand sauvignon blanc and an Australian rose. The move is aimed at reducing the carbon emissions created by the more than one billion bottles of wine we buy in the UK each year. At the moment, that equates to half a million tonnes of glass. According to the government funded Waste and Resource Action Programme (WRAP) which is helping with the trial, just by changing to the much lighter plastic wine bottles 90,000 tonnes of carbon emissions can be saved. A WRAP spokesperson said “That’s equivalent to taking 28,000 cars off the road”.
The plastic bottles will be recyclable, with WRAP evaluating the process to compare the energy used to recycle these new plastic bottles with the energy used to recycle traditional glass ones. There are obvious energy savings in transporting the lighter bottles, but the energy savings in recycling remain to be proven. This is a simple step for the wine producers to take, but the benefits to the environment are tremendous. If this kind of approach is used for other packaged food products, the carbon emission savings could be huge.
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I've one basis & fundamental issue to be discussed.
It is fine to use plastic bottles for wine from the carbon emmission point of view.
But what about the reaction of wine with plastic?
The aroma, taste, odour of wine is likely to change after certain duration depending on the quality of plastic used. This can be health hazard.
Can any plastic bottle manufacturer guarantee the wine contents intact for more than one year without any adverse effects of plastic on wine ?
This matter is serious & urgent.
Please inform.