Slow to catch on?
Progress in the UK!
says Rob Malin, the company’s founder, because the wine is safe in a recyclable plastic pouch inside.
Many Aussies might suggest the original and the best 5 litre version is even more environmentally friendly with it’s compact rectangular box and efficient use of recycled cardboard. No need to empty the whole cask taking just as much as is responsible. Open a bottle there is little point in putting the cap back on. 
I question if it is progress. A cardboard bottle lined with a plastic pouch.
Glass can be recycled (or reused) almost infinitely, while this bottle is a single use wine bottle marginally better than a single use plastic bottle (the packaging company states the cardboard bottles have 77% less plastic than a plastic bottle). Expect the pouches to appear in the environment near you.
If it was a refillable/reusable glass bottle which is returned through the recycling system for such, then it would be a step in the right direction. This particular bottle may seem like a good idea, but it borders on green-washing.
Not recommended as the cardboard bottle goes all soggy especially if you chill it in an esky full of ice. It’s recommended to use a ‘dry chiller’ if the need arises.
I agree it all looks a little pointless, although currently we don’t reuse our glass wine bottles AFAIK. We once reused milk bottles by returning them on the distribution trucks, washing and sterilising before refilling.
The challenge with drink containers appears to be how cheap new plastic is. There are also savings in weight as well as volume, hence transport costs are lower.
The alternative comparison the energy embodied in a glass bottle and that to transport, wash and reuse. A guess is glass looses out as only direct economic outcomes are considered.
P.S.
I noticed on one trip to Tokyo their lower cost alcoholic rums and whiskeys were available in 2 litre plastic bottles. PET - 1
Definitely
The Boss Coffee in the vending unit to the left would be my go to.
Of course what ever one purchases and consumes there is always a recycling option. Sometimes more difficult a choice than which button to press on the vending machine.
Marginally smaller on a per bottle basis, but the cardboard bottles will have no stackable strength, thus meaning bulk packaging will be substantially stronger removing some of the weight and volume benefits. Unless the wine is airfreighted around the world (which heavy products like wine isn’t when distributed in bulk - and only possibly applies to the odd carton shipped to the consumer in a far place), the slightly lighter weight won’t have significant savings. It is green washing and/or marketing spin to try and justify a new packaging against traditional packaging.
Yeah, sort of ‘OOOh look a cardboard bottle with only a tiny bit of plastic that we [can’t] recycle easily’ rather than the entire glass bottle can be recycled effectively and efficiently. I agree it is just an attempt at greenwashing and a hearty dose of puffery.
I mean how many will strip the liner out before throwing the bottle in the bin? I can see the users feeling better that they are only wasting 23% of the plastic they did before when using a fully PET bottle…make them feel good about wastage because it is less.
Corflutes - nearly every politician uses them, even The Greens!
They are made from polypropylene, a plastic made from a fossil fuel - and a petroleum based product.
The ABC shoots itself in the foot?
Yes you can find other uses for them. But left to the environment they start to breakdown after a few years. With all the concerns over microplastic contamination, is it better to put them in the bin, or something else?
Is the ABC confusing reusing and recycling?
In a practical sense reusing corflute material is not sustainable. Apologies to all those environmentally motivated candidates who did not waste money on cheap plastic signs.
A strange heading, given that only other reference to recycling is a vague one in the second last paragraph of the article.
We’ve noticed some products now come from the supermarkets in cardboard trays and some take away coffee cups both with a similar claims. The products say they are certified industrial biodegradable/compostable.
Is this managed through the recycling bin, or should they not go into it?
Are they ok to put in the typical home compost, aerobic or anaerobic?
For a related product, a recent court case brought by the ACCC.
Woolies submitted testing that the product in question could take more than 6 months to break down. Perhaps that is ok?
WINE CASK BLADDERS
Unfortunately most wine cask bladders cannot go in your recycling bin and have to go in your rubbish bin. Given their wide use and claims that they are environmentally superior to bottles, this is very sad.
Foil based wine cask bladders cannot be recycled at all. However clear plastic ones can be recycled via a REDcycle soft plastics collection bin, if they are empty/clean and the hard/rigid plastic component is removed.
REDcycle soft plastics collection bins are located at most major supermarkets. To find your nearest one, visit: redcycle.net.au/where-to-redcycle.
While they can’t be readily recycled, they can be reused/repurposed in many ways:
https://www.google.com/search?q=uses+for+wine+bladders
They also make excellent soft fill in couriered/posted packaging as they are relatively light and act like an airbag.
A great First Dog on the Moon cartoon about recycling
Funniest thing I have seen from The Dog for a while.
A change in priorities.
Motivation, aside from the RedCycle collapse?
Plibersek said while some in the industry had voluntarily reduced their impact, it had been “just not enough”. An official review in April found Australia was recycling just 18% of plastic packaging, and would fall well short of a target of 70% by 2025.
Plenty of challenges, including convincing householders to take ownership of not sending plastics to landfill in the general waste bin. Most but not all of us have progressively learnt it’s wise to take our own shopping bags to the store. There’s no cash prize for not putting plastics in the general bin.
An underlying challenge are the recyclers and waste management companies that have last century’s technology (pardon the literary license). What our local council provider will and will not accept for recycling is more limited than most people expect. Putting anything in the bin that is not accepted can render the entire load unacceptable so off to landfill it goes.
‘We’ are an environmentally conscious locality but one can only do what they can do. Pointing solely at the packaging industry is a step as well as a disservice in the overall picture.
That isn’t correct. MURF contain modern automatic sorting machines, and some manuals sorting where technology isn’t currently available or reliable.
It is also incorrect to say the odd unrecyclabe item by mistake in a recyclable bin will ‘render the entire load unacceptable so off to landfill it goes’. At a MURF, unrecyclable materials are either removed during sorting or pass through the sorting line and end up as waste (which then goes to landfill).
A load may go to landfill if when emptied at the MURF, it is identified that within the collection catchment area a significant amount of recycling bins have been used for general waste. General waste being food, kitchen, bathroom/toilet gardening, buildin, hazardous etc wastes. When a community uses recycling bins for general waste, the waste causes significant impact on sorting equipment and health and safety of MURF personnel. In such cases, entire loads can be diverted to landfill. It is worth noting when working in the industry, highly contaminated catchments were known and loads were screened to determine if they were suitable for processing. Those which weren’t were diverted to landfill.
Unfortunately those in the community, which in some areas there are many, who chose not to recycle and use recycling bins as another general waste bin, waste the good work done those who diligently recycle.
The announcement of the Commonwealth government is a positive step. I would have liked to see it go further to also encourage the packaging industry towards reuse (which should be the option before packaging is recycling). Reuse will be important in the future to reduce resource and embodied energy of packaging.
That is not correct. It varies across the country and the companies and councils. Some have state of the art and others yesterdays best at best.
Enumerating what our local does not pick up includes a list of common disposables. The option of personally taking them to inconvenient locations with often limited hours (and sometimes costs depending) is a disincentive.
We can agree to disagree on the status of recycling companies and recycling in general beyond the headlines. Redcycle comes to mind? It was so good, until…
That is true for the main recycling municipal recyclers which most Australian recycling is processed, they generally have they are modern plants. I agree that there are some smaller regional/rural councils which may old type equipment, but these MURFs are just as effective as sorting the recycling stream. While they are just as effective, they may be less efficient from a cost and capacity point of view. I have been to a range of recycling plants in the past, and even to rural ones where consumers are required to place recycling materials in different bins at the drop off point.
As identified by the Commonwealth government, one of the main issues is finding a sustainable market for sorted recycled materials. Redcycle’s downfall was not due to contamination or yesterday’s technology, but due to a severely limited amount of collected materials and relying on a limited number of business to take the materials for recycling. When they lost businesses to receive their materials, their business model quickly collapsed as they didn’t have other avenues to get rid of the materials (and they started mounting up).
The Commonwealth’s announcement should increase demand for recycling materials, thus potentially reducing the likelihood of another Redcycle event occurring where markets for collected recycled materials are severely restricted. It hopefully will open up opportunities for materials which are being collected to be recycled.
