Over Thanksgiving, one of our more environmentally aware family members mentioned (as wine was being opened) that you should never buy wine with a plastic cork. Not because the plastic hurt the wine, but because it was bad for the environment – or at least, worse for the environment than cork corks.
His basic point: Cork is a renewable resource, while plastic isn’t. Therefore, cork is better.
I wasn’t in the room when the topic came up, however, and when I heard his point it occurred to me that one reason that vintners use plastic cork is because a small quantity of wine gets ruined because cork taint. It seems to me, then, that you’d have to factor in the environmental benefits of not shipping a bunch of ruined wine around the world before claiming that one material is better than another.
I did some Web research on the topic, though, and a few other points seem to be made in cork’s favor: cork forests provide a natural habitat for some bird species, and if plastic corks displace enough cork corks those forests, and hence those birds, are at risk.
It was mentioned in one article that plastic cork is recyclable, so maybe it’s not as horrible a non-renewable resource as one might expect.
And with that, I have to ask the collective wisdom of the SDMB: is plastic cork an environmentally unfriendly choice? Should the wine world stick with cork corks, or is plastic a reasonable choice, environmentally speaking?
The problem is that there is a cork shortage. It takes decades for a cork tree to produce enough bark to make the corks, and demand for wine is greater than the supply and will be for many years, even if more cork trees are planted.
So there are two other options: plastic or screw tops. As a matter of fact, some wineries would love to move to screw tops; not only are they easier to open, but they also seal the open bottle better. However, wine snobbery makes it hard for screw top to be accepted for premium wines.
But the ultimate issue is that if they stick with corks, there will eventually be no more cork left. So if the environmentalists insist on cork only, they’ll be wiping out the cork forests.
There is a worldwide shortage of good cork, and that is why plastic corks are becoming common. Good corks are solid pieces of cork bark; an increasing amount of cork these days has gaps and scars in it. There is even a sort of “plycork,” composed of ground and pressed cork of lower quality.
Cork forests may indeed be a natural bird habitat, but if those forests are destroyed by overharvesting of cork, where are the birds then? Cork is only a renewable resource if it’s harvested responsibly.
Unfortunately, though plastic corks may be recyclable, they are not labeled for recycling, and thus will not be accepted by most recyclers.
So…basically, it’s a wash, from an environmental standpoint?
Several of the articles I read indicate that if plastic corks get popular enough – and they seem to be on their way – the cork shortfall will disappear and cork forests will be threatened. But it looks like a lot of the “pity the cork forest” messages are cork-industry propaganda.
It looks like one solution to the problem is to have plastic cork makers mark their corks as recyclable. Even if the plastic is non-renewable at that point, it’s not a one-time use product.
It’s a threat by the cork people: “If you use plastic corks, no one will need the cork trees any more, and they’ll all get cut down and plowed under.” Cork trees, you see, grow the cork back in 9 years (if you don’t cut into the phloem). The only way an out-of-work cork forest can survive is if they decide NOT to cut them down.
I think it’s a wine snobbery thing too. I used to work at a winery where they bottled with plastic corks and I was always having to explain about the cork shortage and cork taint. With plastic corks you don’t need to store the bottles on their sides to keep the seal moist either. I guess it’s really a matter of preference; I don’t mind plastic corks at all, but screw tops? Oh, I guess I’d get used to it.