Boxed wine is the new black. There are versions now, like BOXT, that are high quality, taste phenomenal and made in small batches, but whether it's a luxury boxed wine or not, all boxed wine is better for the environment than bottles.
If you live in just about anywhere in the US, you know it's been a record breaking summer for high temps. Here in Austin, we had 22 days in a row over 100 degrees in June (except for that one blissfully cool 98-degree day back on June 15th) and July has been just as hot. It's got a lot of us thinking about how to reduce our carbon footprint, something BOXT has been all about since the very start.
So why is boxed wine better for the environment? Here are eight reasons the box is better than the bottle.
Boxed wine packaging is more sustainable than glass.
1. A study produced by the CSWA (California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance) found that boxed wine has 84% lower carbon emissions than traditional glass bottles.
2. Most boxed wine packaging is 100% recyclable or in the case of BOXT, reusable, compostable and refillable (which makes BOXT even better for the environment than other boxed wines. Go us).
3. In the US, we only recycle about 31% of our glass (in Texas, that number is as low as 12%). This creates 7.6 million tons of glass thrown into the landfill every year.
The weight matters.
4. Cardboard weighs less than glass. A study by the University of California, Davis (one of the world's best viticulture research departments in the world dating back to 1880) found that the average (see number 5 for what happens if that bottle goes cross country) production and transportation of a single glass bottle of wine produces about 2.6 pounds of carbon dioxide. This is equivalent to driving a car for about 2 miles, whereas the production and transportation of a 3-liter box of wine (that's the same as four bottles) produces about 1.2 pounds of carbon dioxide. Less than half!
5. A study quoted in the New York Times found that "A standard wine bottle holds 750 milliliters of wine and generates about 5.2 pounds of carbon-dioxide emissions when it travels from a vineyard in California to a store in New York. A 3-liter box generates about half the emissions per 750 milliliters. Switching to wine in a box...would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about two million tons, or the equivalent of retiring 400,000 cars." (New York Times)
6. When you purchase boxed wine, you're buying the equivalent of four bottles, so you've just kept four bottles out of production and off the streets.
Glass isn't an eco-friendly thing to produce.
7. Traditionally glass manufacturers use an inexpensive carbon source such as petroleum refinery bottoms (the residue at the bottom of a barrel of crude oil after processing) or crushed coal in the ingredients of the bottle itself.
8. Coal is often used to fire the glass and GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions measured in the EU from the glass production chain account for around 20 Mt (metric ton) CO2 equivalent. That's like filling up 20 average two-story, 2.200 square-foot homes with carbon dioxide.
Don't get us wrong, we're not against bottles, they have their place - if you're aging a wine, then absolutely. When you're out to dinner, of course, but for your daily glass, the one you know you'll love every time and doesn't go bad after three days? BOXT and boxed wine is always going to be better for the environment.
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