Recycled Wine
Bottles!
When you pick up your favorite bottle of wine at your grocery or wine store, do you ever give a thought about the glass wine bottle? Do you ever wonder where the glass wine bottle was made or who made it? When you throw your empty wine bottle into your recycling bin, do you ever wonder what happens to it?
Well, with this Blog, we’re going to
answer these questions and, perhaps, a few more.
Americans love their wine. Let’s
begin by throwing out a few interesting wine facts. First, each year, we adult
Americans consume over “350 Million” cases of wine. That’s about “4.2 Billion” bottles! Florida, by the way, is the “Third” wine consuming State
in the nation! Did you know that Florida grows grapes and makes world-class
wines? Yep, that’s a fact! Florida can boast of about ‘25’ Certified Florida Farm Wineries! Our wineries stretch from north Florida, through central Florida and
into the Keys.
So, what about those empty wine
bottles? What happens to the bottle when we’ve poured and enjoyed the last
glass? Well, per the E.P.A. (Environmental Protection Agency), approximately
70% of our empty wine bottles are going to our landfills. That leaves us with
less than 30% going into our recycling bins! Most often, if you throw your
empty wine bottle into your recycling bin, the glass is broken up and added to
the asphalt in our roads. Only a very tiny fraction of our 4 billion plus empty
wine bottles are being recycled by our wineries!
Unfortunately, this sad picture gets
even worse. Instead of stepping up to the plate and repurposing their empty
wine bottles back into wine bottles, most wineries are continuing to buy new
wine bottles from factories in China, Mexico and Italy. This is an
unsustainable trend. Our children and grandchildren will be compelled to deal
with this environmental disaster unless we take corrective steps on our watch.
So what can WE do?? Well, we
can begin by insisting that our wineries take back and reuse our empty wine
bottles. As we know, glass can be cleaned and sanitized and reused…Forever!
Vote with your dollars! Support the wineries that recycle/reuse their wine
bottles. In Manatee County, BHV (Bunker Hill Vineyard &
Winery) uses only 100% recycled wine bottles!
Last year, we recycled over “12,000” empty wine bottles! So, you see, it
can be done. All it takes is the will to do the right thing!
Until we meet again….”Salute
and Happy Days”!
