Europe has been doing it for a while, but leave it to the squeaky clean Americans to jump on this germy bandwagon last: reusing wine bottles. Reports say recycling glass bottles — although it makes us all feel pretty damn good while we’re doing our part — is not a long term solution. Turns out, the process pollutes the atmosphere more than it saves landfill space.
So a company in California has embraced the inevitable future I bet none of us expected to see: washing the already used wine bottles and reusing them. So simple… so practical… so “duh.” The start up company based in Stockton is called, unimaginatively enough, Wine Bottle Recycling. But the response from the industry has been enthusiastic: much of the funding came from wine companies like Trinchero, Kendall Jackson and Mendocino Wine Company. They will benefit initially from the service since the company will handle unwanted bottles from wineries first and then begin accepting bottles from the public, “post consumer”.
A very old idea. Remember the old green Coke bottles that you had to pay a nickle deposit on? They were hauled back to the bottler, run though a bottle washing machine and refilled. Only when plastic bottles and metal cans became more popular did they quit refilling.