Wine trade misperception over heavy glass

To coincide with Earth day on the 21st April 2022 Harpers wine magazine held a debate where it was accepted that “the trade had created the perception among consumers that a deep punt and thick bottle are aligned with the quality of the liquid inside”.

The second issue associated with glass wine bottles was that “consumers have at least a notion that much glass – around 70% – is recycled in the UK, compared with some estimates of plastic being below 10%”. This number is wildly wrong - green glass is collected but with low demand for this type of glass in the UK much is re-used as road fill and not recycled.

Sarah Benson of the Co-Op said: “[Glass] is definitely the most understood packaging format from a customer perspective. It's uniform, it's inert, it doesn’t have the challenges of shorter life like wine in cans or bag in box, for example, and it's also very easy for customers to understand its recyclability.”