The continuous development of more sustainable packaging is at the core of Altia’s responsibility work. This spring, the company is offering even more environmentally conscious options for wine lovers by introducing wine bottles made entirely from recycled PET plastic. The carbon footprint of the new bottle type is less than 40% of that of a similar glass bottle.
When it comes to drink packaging, Nordic consumers are forerunners in sustainability. Finnish and Scandinavian consumers are accustomed to buying alcoholic beverages in plastic packages, and the bag in box (BiB) wine package has been a big hit. This creates a good basis for developing even more sustainable packaging.
As the result of a project initiated last year, Altia has replaced one quarter of the PET plastic used in spirits bottles with recycled rPET plastic. At the same time, the amount of plastic content in some bottles was reduced by as much as 10%. Now Altia has launched a wine bottle in which all the PET material is from recycled content.
‘Revamping the PET bottles is one of our biggest accomplishments in wine packaging technology this year. The PET plastic has been fully replaced with recycled material. This has required a lot of technical cooperation with the bottle supplier,’ said packaging development manager Juha Ylisiurua.
Altia’s rPET wine bottle is 90% lighter in weight than a traditional glass bottle.
The carbon footprint of a wine bottle made of glass is 60% greater than that of a PET bottle. Replacing the PET material with recycled material further reduces the packaging's carbon footprint. According to Altia's lifecycle assessments, the new rPET wine bottle’s carbon footprint is almost 50% smaller than that of a bottle made from virgin materials.
‘Our recyclable rPET wine bottles, which also have plastic corks, are the first products at this scale made from recycled PET material derived from deposit bottles returned by customers. We are going to transition completely from PET bottles made from virgin materials in the packaging of our own wine brands during the summer,’ Juha said.
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