UK: GreenBottle introduces paper bottle for wine

GreenBottle, a small British Company that has introduced the paper milk bottle, is celebrating the sale of its 100,000th bottle, making it one of the fastest selling green packaging solutions in the UK. The paper milk bottle is currently on successful trial in Asda stores. GreenBottle has now developed a prototype paper bottle for wine and is in talks with supermarkets and wine producers to make it available to the British public as early as next year. According to the Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP), the UK buys in around 1.2 billion glass bottles a year, generating CO² emissions during transportation and contributing more than 630,000 tonnes of glass to the UK waste stream, around 40 % of which is disposed of as household waste. Offering wine in paper bottles would reduce the amount of both glass waste and CO² emmissions.
 

Since its launch earlier this year in Asda stores, consumer reaction to GreenBottle’s paper milk bottle has been very successful. In a six-month test market in the south-west of the UK sales of milk sold in GreenBottles more than tripled compared to previous sales in conventional plastic bottles. Post-usage research indicates that over 80 % of consumers who try GreenBottle prefer it over plastic bottles, and instantly understand the environmental benefits it brings, GreenBottle reports.

Each day, over 15 million plastic bottles are used in the UK. GreenBottles use less than a third of the plastic of conventional milk bottles, with a much lower carbon footprint. The paper bottle itself is compostable, can be recycled several times and decomposes in just a matter of weeks. The packaging is made of paper with a thin plastic lining and was the brainchild of Suffolk inventor Martin Myerscough following a conversation with a waste tip supervisor. The GreenBottle success story has been achieved without funding support from UK banks, The business is funded by private investors and grants secured from the European Union. (Picture: Mr. Myerscough with the new paper bottle for wine)

GreenBottle