Environmental Issues

As the beverage and retail industries grow more environmentally aware, the use of ProCork products by wine producers provides them the opportunity to promote their eco-friendly image.

In improving environmental practices, the wine industry focuses on vineyard and winery issues - water, pesticide, herbicide, chemical usage, runoff and waste water as well as the key areas of packaging.

Cork is a product that has all the environmental benefits you could ask for. It is light weight, natural, recycled, a greenhouse gas sink and its use protects wildlife. Wine sealed in this way promotes a high class environmental image. You can't get more organic than cork.

A complete life cycle study conducted in Germany by The Institute for Applied Ecology, Freiburg, where the environmental impact of natural wine cork and screwcap were compared, came out in favour of cork.

The study concluded: "Cork closures perform considerably better than aluminium screwcaps across the most environmentally-relevant criteria and key environmental problem areas (resource depletion, contribution to the greenhouse effect, and their tendency to contribute to acidification)."

References:

Life Cycle Assessment – Natural Cork v Aluminium Screwcap, The Institute for Applied Ecology, Freiburg Germany, 1996