DIY Green Home: Wine Bottle Modular Shelving

If you’ve got a drill, some planks of wood and a collection of empty wine bottles, you can create simple and free modular shelves that are actually quite stylish. Instructables has easy step-by-step directions for the ‘Ten Green Modular Shelving’.

From Instructables:

Ten Green is a modular shelving system, constructed simply from local recyclates.

This prototype was built with the Coach House Trust in Glasgow, using bottles from their recycling centre, and wood from the maintenance of their own sites. You can use any found timber, and adapt the dimensions to suit the wood you are working with.

And hey, if you don’t have any empty wine bottles, there’s never been a better excuse to throw a party or try out a bunch of new varieties. If you’re not a lush, local restaurants would undoubtedly be happy to unload some of their recyclables.

Link [Instructables]

Single-Serve Wine – Do You Think It’s Green?

Is single-serve wine ever really green? Call me a stickler, but I don’t consider much of anything single-serve to be eco-friendly – it’s almost always better to buy in large packages. Especially when the single-serve product is coming in a plastic container. But, that’s where Volute stands out from the crowd. Rather than packaging that’ll end up in the landfill, Volute’s petite new bottles of wine – which come in red, white and rose – are packaged in 187 ml aluminum bottles.

From Springwise:

The California-based company highlights the bottles’ portability, pitching Volute as the wine that can be drunk anywhere, including no-glass zones like concerts, camping grounds and beaches. And given the bottle’s distinctive look, drinking from a Volute bottle might be more socially acceptable than drinking wine from a glass bottle, a can or—perish the thought—a juice box.

Aluminium bottles are also claimed to be eco-friendlier than traditional glass bottles. Aluminium can be recycled almost infinitely and the bottles require less fuel to transport than their heavier glass counterparts. To combat worries that aluminium might destroy a premium wine, the company points out that the packaging not only has the same qualities as glass but improves on it with it UV-blocking properties. Volute’s recognition of consumers’ desire for convenient and eco-friendlier products seems spot-on.

If this wine were organic, they’d really be getting somewhere. But, aluminum packaging is a start, especially if it doesn’t alter the taste of the wine. Props to Volute for thinking about the environment when providing people with cute little bottles of wine.

Link [Springwise]

Corked Wine is Green After All, When the Cork is Sustainably Harvested

Good news, oenophiles – you don’t have to drink screw-cap wine in order to be eco-friendly. We’ve heard for years that it’s better to avoid corked wines – and cork in general – because it was claimed that cork harvesting was destroying a vital habitat.  But, it turns out that, as long as it’s sustainably harvested, using cork products actually helps maintain a healthy ecosystem in the region of Portugal where cork is grown.

Cork oaks promote a lush environment brimming with vitality, as their roots hold together soil to protect it from deluges and their branches provide homes for wildlife unique to cork forests.  As long as there’s demand for cork, this area will be protected.  Antonio Ferreira, a cork farmer in the Coruche district, explains the delicate process of harvesting cork that ensures the health of the trees.

From BBC News:

Farmers do not risk letting anyone loose on these trees with a sharpened axe. The men putting carefully placed cuts in the bark, and peeling back people-sized chunks of outer tree trunk, have been doing this job for years.

“It’s like cutting cloth for dress-making”, says Mr Ferreira.

Conceicao Silva, who works as a forest engineer for the organisation overseeing environmental standards in the industry, adds: “Bring the axe down too hard on the branch and permanent damage could be done, which will rule out generations of future harvesting.

“If it’s properly managed, what we are looking at here is the ultimate sustainable resource.”

Many wine enthusiasts were less than thrilled about screw caps, and this news might help raise public demand for cork so that vintners switch back.  So, next time you’re in the mood for a glass, choose a bottle with a cork.  As if you needed an excuse to drink a lot of wine, now you can say you’re doing it for the environment.  Cheers!

Link [BBC News]

The Ultimate in Green Booze: French Returning to Shipping Wine by Sailboat

When French vineyards decided they wanted to reduce their carbon footprint, they thought backwards instead of forwards: they’re going back to a shipping method they last used in the 1800’s. Some vintners are choosing sailboats to transport their most eco-friendly wines.

From The Guardian:

Later this month 60,000 bottles from Languedoc will be shipped to Ireland in a 19th-century barque, saving 18,375lb of carbon. Further voyages to Bristol, Manchester and even Canada are planned soon afterwards.

The three-mast barque Belem, which was launched in 1896, the last French merchant sailing vessel to be built, will sail into Dublin following a voyage from Bordeaux that should last about four days. The wines will be delivered to Bordeaux by barge using the Canal du Midi and Canal du Garonne, which run across southern France from Sète in the east, via Béziers in Languedoc. Each bottle will be labelled: ‘Carried by sailing ship, a better deal for the planet.’ Although the whole process will end up taking up to a week longer than a flight, it is estimated it will save 4.9oz of carbon per bottle.

Frederic Albert, founder of the shipping company Compagnie de Transport Maritime à la Voile (CTMV), said: ‘My idea was to do something for the planet and something for the wines of Languedoc. One of my grandfathers was a wine-maker and one was a sailor.’

Smart move! Not only is it a great eco-friendly way to ship wine, it increases visibility of these vineyards because of the great story. What makes this even cooler is that ships will return to France bearing an equal tonnage of crushed glass for recycling into wine bottles. The vineyards have chosen their best, most sustainably produced wines for the sailboat voyage, because they want their eco-conscious consumers to get the full ‘green wine’ experience. Despite all this trouble, the wines will remain fairly cheap – €7 to €20 a bottle.

I’m a bit of a wino and a history dork, so the idea of my Beaujolais coming across the Atlantic on a romantic sailboat voyage makes me want to drink even more of it. Hey, we’ve got to make it worth their time and investment, right? A round of red for everyone!

Link [The Guardian]
Photo credit: Flickr user Kables