In Las Vegas, glass is collected for recycling only in residential areas, and from large quantity generators such as hotels. Restaurants with bars generate a considerable amount of glass, but are unable to recycle it because no market exists in Las Vegas for recycled glass. It must be transported to California for processing and sale. The weight and volume of the glass, the inability to process it in Southern Nevada for sale in other states, as well as the Bottle Bill in California, all make glass recycling in Las Vegas cost prohibitive. For that reason, local recycling companies will not collect it. This makes it difficult to effectively recycle what would in other regions be a valuable commodity.

Unfortunately, according to a quick search on the internet, only 25% of glass bottles produced each year are recycled. Which leads me to believe that Whole Foods Market’s decision to reduce 100% of the transportation emissions is the greater good, especially when plastic is much easier to recycle in markets like Las Vegas.

Glad to see that everyone here cares enough about recycling to blog about plastic vs. glass. It makes me optimistic that more people will make an effort to recycle, but in the mean time, any company’s efforts to improve the environment should be applauded.

I have been so encouraged that you have phased out plastic check out bags. But, if you were being consistent, you would phase them back in — because they cost less to ship than paper.

Go back to your original model. Its pretty obvious to me that the most thoughtful letters written by the most loyal customers think this is a BAD idea. The Treehuggers sight calls this Greenwashing. ITS AN ECONOMIC DECISION by the Beaujolais industry – to save them shipping costs. Do they even sell this wine in yucky plastic packaging in France? Or do they think it will take an American market to accept this. Bottom Line: Forget the Beaujolais; buy American wines – they are just as good or better anyway.

Another benefit- Plastic is much safer than a glass bottle on a bustling holiday kitchen counter…

Thank you for your passion and concern for the environment. Like the paper vs. plastic debate, this is certainly a complex issue.

While we know that plastic is not perfect, we believe it does offer some environmental benefits over glass that are worth considering. Plastic is much lighter weight than glass: an empty glass bottle weights an average of 265 g vs. 30 g for a PET bottle. This helps reduce the environmental impact on shipping full bottles to our stores, and also shipping empty bottles to recycling plants as it increases the quantity of wine per load and economizes on fuel use. Based on a calculation by Triple Pundit, shipping 1,000 PET bottles 1,000 km emits about 33.5 kg of CO2. Shipping 1,000 glass bottles 1,000 km would emit about 225 kg of CO2, a major increase over PET bottles.

In addition, our Nouveau bottles are 100% recyclable, and can be made into hundreds of everyday products such as fleece jackets, carpeting, and lumber for outdoor decking. Plastic requires much less energy to recycle than glass, and recycling one pound of PET plastic bottles saves approximately 12,000 BTUs of heat energy. Plastics are made with petroleum, but glass requires petroleum for production as well, and producing a glass bottle emits about fifteen times more GHGs than producing a plastic bottle. Finally, we have taken care to select one of the safest plastics on the market, which also protects the wine’s quality and flavor.

We realized it was a risky move being the first retailer to bring in this annual tradition in plastic bottles. But caring for the environment is one of our core values, and we pride ourselves on being an industry leader in environmental stewardship. While this solution isn’t perfect, we believe that it could be an improvement over the alternative and is thus worthy of consideration.

Doug Bell
National Wine Buyer