If your a wine drinker, then you might find this topic quite useful. Do you find yourself with handfuls of wine corks without being sure what to do with them? Well, don't throw them away, because there are actually large efforts to recycle these corks into other useful commodities. But first, let's start with some background information. Wine corks come from the Cork Oak tree, or Quercus suber. This tree lives to be about 150 to 250 years old, but the first harvest of cork cannot take place until the tree is around 25 years old, and then only every 9 years or so after that. About half of the commercial corks in the world come from the Portuguese cork industry, with their major exports to the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany.
So why save these corks? Well, not only are cork oak trees an excellent source of carbon sequestration, but they also provides a habitat rich in biodiversity. These corks can also be remade into push pin boards, coasters, and even flooring for houses. Not only this, but it prevents the corks from just sitting in landfills waiting to decay. Cork ReHarvest is a leading advocate of the recycling of corks. They promote the fact that cork is a natural, renewable, recyclable, and biodegradable material, and have helped to recycle some of the 13 billion natural corks produced each year. They have also partnered with many restaurants and wine associations to collect and recycle their old corks.
There are a few ways to get involved. Cork ReHarvest actually provides a map on their website giving locations of DropBoxes to leave these corks in. Also, many local towns are now taking initiative to recycle corks. The city of Annapolis, MD has partnered with many of it's local restaurants to save corks, and has also provided bins in various locations around town for members of the community to recycle their old corks. According to the Annapolis Green website, it is estimated that about 15 billion wine corks are thrown out each year in the United States. To put this in perspective, that is enough corks to circle the earth 16 times! Just think how many other things these corks could have been used for. So next time you drink a bottle of wine, save your cork!
How many of these Cork redharvest drop boxes are located throughout the community? I have never heard of this program, and think it is a great idea, although I do not think it has enough popularity. A study should be done to see where the biggest intake of wine is, so that these areas can have better awareness and implementation of these dropboxes. Also, I wonder why can't certain recycable materials such as the corks cannot be placed into the green bins for recycle?
ReplyDeleteThe above comment was by Jacquelyn Wright, I meant to add that.
ReplyDeleteAt a locally owned liquor store in my hometown of Boulder, CO they have a Cork recycling drop box. I'm not sure if it is associated with Cork ReHarvest or not, but it says that most of the corks will go toward making flooring. I think the recycling of corks is a great idea, especially for flooring. After seeing and walking on cork floors at my friends recently built green home (also in Boulder), they really are beautiful and have a very unique look to them - they definitely can compete with finer woods.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a cool idea. I never thought about recycling the corks, the bottles of course, but I will hang on to any corks I come across from now on!
ReplyDeleteOne thing though, many wine companies have shifted from using real cork in their corks. The new trend comes in the form of screw off tops and "non-natural" corks. Studies have shown that "the way its bottle is stopped has little if any effect on a wine’s flavor". I don't believe that cork will be completely replace by the screw top, as it just doesn't seem as classsy when you twist off the top to a bottle of wine, but there may be a significant drop in the use of real cork when bottling wine!