A way to re-use empty wine bottles

ST. JOHN’S, NL—In a first for North America, a Newfoundland company has come up with a way to reuse empty wine bottles.

Ever Green Environmental Corporation has $10,000 from the Multi-Material Stewardship Board’s (MMSB) Solid Waste Management Innovation Fund and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency.

Ever Green said the program would hand over 500,000 wine bottles annually to Newfoundland’s wineries, with the goal of reducing greenhouse gases by 2,500 metric tons yearly.

The MMSB said there is a challenge when it comes to handling large volumes of bottles of different shapes and sizes, the type of label and the way it is adhered to the bottle.

Shape, size, the colour of the glass and label material can also vary by brand as manufacturers design their own bottles to reflect the product.

“Processes for recovery and reuse of glass alcohol containers are well defined and established, as is de-labelling for small volumes of containers,” said Ed Drover, chair of Ever Green.

“We now have a process that can address sanitization, de-labelling, recovery and reuse of hundreds of thousands of containers annually in a single integrated industrial process.”

Mike Wadden, president and COO of Ever Green, said the first target will be the 500,000 bottles used annually by the province’s fruit wine producers. Currently, all wine bottles used in Newfoundland are imported, often from Europe.

An additional 2,500,000 bottles are imported annually by the Newfoundland and Labrador Liquor Corporation, private companies and the wineries.

The province currently has two fruit wine producers, Rodrigues Markland Cottage Winery and Auk Island Winery.

“The wineries have recognized that they must incorporate recycled bottles to support their own sustainability,” Wadden said.

“We have been working...to develop an industrial-level process to support the sanitization, de-labelling, recycling and re-use of glass alcohol containers.”

The National Research Council said the Newfoundland project is the only one of its type in North America.