I hate drinking from plastic bottles, I'm sure it taints the flavour.

And besides, glass is made from sand, whereas plastic is made from oil. Is plastic really considered greener? Wouldn't it be greener to reuse the bottles?

This smacks of cost-saving for the supermarkets, hiding behind a green excuse.

Greener???

Its only greener because its lighter to transport. This is about maximising profits not the environment.

'environmentally friendly plastic'

Now theres an Oxymoron if ever I heard.

Glass can be recycled too you know!

To paraphrase Linda Smith (I think):

25cl - that's not drinking. It's homoeopathy.

They're not satisfied making everyone buy a double thick carrier "bag for life" that just gets used as a bin bag or something to empty the hoover into. Bring back brown paper bags and glass bottles that have a deposit on them

I'd always considered 25cl bottles were for cookery use rather than drinking.

@sneekyboy
What's wrong with the lighter weight argument? Transporting 525 tons of glass requires a lot of petrol. And you need much higher temperatures (= energy = carbon emissions) to recycle glass than is the case for plastic.

"Its only greener because its lighter to transport. This is about maximising profits not the environment. "

Surely being lighter to transport means less oil used in the transport? And surely although glass is made of silica, it needs oil or coal to stoke up the furnace to make it?

Whether reusing glass bottles would be better would depend on whether most people were prepared to take them back and also whether the energy inputs are in transport or manufacture - surely sending the bottles back for refills is a big energy drain? Also there are hygiene considerations. The old deposit bottles worked in an era of more localised manufacturing and distribution and cheaper petrol.

The b******s in Tesco and Sainburys dont sell 25cl bottles, they sell 18.75cl bottles - and DONT REDUCE THE PRICE.

Stick with Asda and Aldi if you want value for money drinking (and can't neck a big one in one go).

Greener?

Somebody please provide a link, I'd be very interested to read about how plastic bottles are greener than glass.

What % lighter is a plastic bottle vs glass when it's full of wine? What reduction in shipping weight is actually achieved?

@craig1459

I'd always considered 25cl bottles were for cookery use rather than drinking.

I use the normal 70cl bottles of wine for cookery. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

Shellac: This article from the FT provides a lot of food for thought:
http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id=fto042520081750240859

It's increasingly difficult for consumers to make informed decisions about what to buy. Products are labelled "green" or "sustainable" when they're nothing of the sort. What is the relevance of the carbon footprint of packaging when the item packaged, for example a piece of cheese or meat, has a far worse eco-balance than the packaging itself?

Q: Lorry A carries 30t of glass bottles. Lorry B carries 30t of plastic bottles.
Which is heavier?

A: Is obvious - neither, since 30t is 30t regardless of material.

Plastic may be lighter, but it is also thinner, which presumably means more bottles per crate/pallet than is the case with glass. And don't kid yourselves that it'll ultimately mean one truck less per whatever. It won't. They'll send the same number out and thus maximise profits.
In any case, any saving in oil made by switching from glass to plastic is done away with by the corresponding (and perhaps higher) need for oil to make the plastic.
Oil used for glass = limited to trucks.
Oil for plastic = for production of plastics and for use in trucks.
You still have a high energy use to actually make either. There are, iirc, more processes to forming a plastic bottle than a glass one, meaning energy used is roughly the same in the end.

As for not reusing glass due to hygiene...do you mean to tell me all these detergents and antiseptics are useless, even at industrial strength levels?

This is all very well as far as we are considering conveniecy in transport on both sides - oriducers and consumers- but the question is are you really for drinking wine out of a plastic bottle? Wine, if it is a good one, should be drunk in ideal conditions, (palstic is not) if not switch to any other drink and if it is going to be cheap or medium quality stuff, then more reasons for switching, nay even for not buying any. Wine in plastic bottles! and what next?

Any alleged 'environmental' benefits flowing from M&S's proposals are taken with a huge pinch of salt here.

You can no longer get a free bag when you are at the check-out, under their PLAN A proposals (which makes us all feel terribly guilty when we forget our bags); and with all this 'banging on' about how much they are doing for and caring for the environment, MEANWHILE.....

...virtually every single item available for sale in M&S is covered, wrapped, boxed and contained in plastic. Probably more so than any other store.

TOTAL HYPOCRITES in my submitted opinion

@Dostoyeveky01
Take a look at the FT article I linked to in my previous post. We need to be buying less stuff generally, not less stuff with plastic packaging.

Now I can drink at work, on the train and at the gym without that tell-tale clinking - thanks M&S!

TOTAL HYPOCRITES in my submitted opinion

Seems like some people see their glass as half-empty!

Hello, hello. Is this thing on?

What absolute bollocks.

Just because it's 100% recyclable doesn't mean it will be recycled. It's just as likely to be discarded and end up floating in the middle of the Atlantic or Pacific gyre for the next couple of thousand years. Glass may take more energy but:
- It is ultimately degradable with very little harm to the environment;
- It is not a product of the petrochemical industry, which as we can see from what is happening in the Mexican Gulf, is anything but environmentally friendly;
- It does not use plasticisers which cause long term ecological damage;

There is far more to sustainable packaging than just energy and the long term impact of plastic on the environment must far outweigh any perceived benefits in this field. Especially if that energy comes from renewable sources.

Greenwash and hogwash.

Perhaps I am stupid Sweeting, as i don't follow your comment at all....

We don't (apart from occasional lunches) ever shop in M&S, nor do we ever intend to - everything we buy is delivered from a well known organic delivery company (apart from occasional (and reluctant) top ups at Supermarkets for certain items the organic company do not sell).

everything this company sells comes in cardboard boxes and paper bags and we also save petrol by not visiting the hellhole supermarkets too often. In addition the weekly spend is only max £40-£50 and often we have spare veg left over. We also buy meat, tins etc.

So we save money (we certainly spend a lot less per week than when we were shopping at the supermarkets) and we also save fuel. We also save time and basically don't have to get off our arses to get our weekly shop. More time for other things. and...ergo much more environmentally sound imho.

" a shade greener" is right ......a browner shade of green with an oily sheen.

Yet another case of more green spin, less green substance.
Greener is certainly a matter of perspective here.

Yes, less energy in production and probably in transportation.
Transportation benefits will also be more relevant on where the plastic crap is coming from.
Most environmental negatives in shipping can be negated through greener shipping practices and supporting localised manufacture.
Shipping plastic half way round the world to put wine in it, how wonderfully environmental you are.
If you open your mind to what plastic is and what is is doing to our food service and ultimately our environment, changing over to oil based packaging is a step in the wrong direction.
To be truly environmental, a sustainable material is required.
M n S have missed an opportunity to do something much more defining by poorly choosing an easy option.
People who care about wine will recognise this is frivolous and so will environmentalists.
If you like wine and the environment buy local wine or at least from your continent.
If you don't want whole 75c bottle at a picnic, share one or stick a cork in it.
Being environmental is much more cerebral than mainstream consumerism will allow us to believe.
Don't buy wine in such ridiculous portions anyhow.

Fruitcandle
I hate drinking from plastic bottles, I'm sure it taints the flavour.

Blind tastings have disproved your assertion. Most damaged wine results from tainted corks (a natural product)

sneekyboy
environmentally friendly plastic
Now there's an Oxymoron if ever I heard.

never heard of polylactide or polyamide made from castor oil????

PET bottles, just like glass bottles, are recyclable

The transport cost of a load of wine bottled in PET will be lower than a load bottled in glass - PET is much less dense than glass

Dostoyevsky01
I've heard this rumour that Jo Ratzinger has proposed your beatification

good job I am not a catholic then...! :-)

To make glass bottles you have to melt the sand - which takes more than 1000 °C. Where does the heat come from? Fossil fuels!

the giant economy size gets my vote every time...

Wine has been sold in plastic containers for years. The difference is that the wine available was in French supermarkets on the bottom shelf. Unbranded and cheap it was the lowest quality in the shop. Plastic bottles are going to carry that stigma in some circles for a while yet, whatever blind tasting results say.

Lightweight and convenient for the retailer, yes of course. Lightweight and convenient for some customers perhaps. Those drinking outside or where breakable glass containers are prohibited could find them useful.

Wolf Blass (and probably others) have had a line of 'Green label' plastic bottles for sale at events for some years. The difference was mainly the price, a glass 'yellow label' from the supermarket was 6 or 7 quid, the 'green label' contents appeared to be the same varietal, non specific South-east Australia origin but 16 to 20 quid. Crossing a 'no alcohol, no glass containers' door search added a tenner to the price. At least that can now be seen for the blatant profiteering it is rather than hiding behind safety concerns.

Green? Probably not and it's greenwash to market it as such. In theory PET is recyclable but there is only one factory in the UK doing it (afaik). 75% of plastic containers are still going in landfill. That's going to be even higher at picnics, outdoors and at events where these are being marketed. Plastics use oil directly to produce. Glass may use more energy directly but the input is more versatile and modern technology like heat exchangers mean it is less energy profligate than it was.

Is it weight saving? Only when you're carrying it.. Realistically, most supermarket deliveries are not weight limited. The lorry is only half full on average at most - think about it. In a mixed supermarket load there are lightweight items like tissues and cornflakes in there so even a full load is rarely going to trouble the weighbridge. Opportunities for reducing transport costs are far smaller than the marketeers might lead you to think.

Plastic recycling is labour intensive because a stream is so easily contaminated, it needs careful manual screening. At least we know how to recycle glass, even if much of it ends up as road base. Glass is too expensive to ship it back to the wine producing areas where it could be recycled because it's heavy. Bulk tanks and local bottling is still limited to the low end generic wine market.

Wine should be delivered to the doorstep by electric vehicles in refillable bottles, it's the only green way.

This is a joke right? I didn't realise the Guardian was engaging in greenwash on behalf of supermarkets now...

How about using recycled cardboard cartons? Do we need resealable bottles for 25ml of wine?

What is the total environmental cost of producing the oil, transporting it, making it into plastic, making the bottles, handling, distribution and percentage re-cycled to make not very nice plastic products and road cones? how does this compare with glass which is made from sand, has to be melted and made into bottles, which can be re-used if necessary many times and eventually re-cycled to make bottles again? I.e not just the costs to M&S - the WHOLE environmental cost and use of a material - oil which is one off and irreplacable?
O and glass can be made into small bottles too......

Plastic can be recycled, but only in the most limited, short-term way -- bottle to carpet, then to landfill. Glass, however, can be recycled infinitely. So what is this article doing in the "recycling" section of the Guardian's green pages? And yes, this is just a dodge from M&S to try to give short-term cost savings a green gloss; they have no interest in the environment.

The author is at fault for allowing M&S to get away with its claims, but shame too on the Guardian's editors for allowing this kind of weak-headed non-journalism to see the light of day. They did no one any favors.

That's a very uncritical article. I'll bet it came straight from a corporate press release. Journalists should learn to cultivate a little more doubt.

@ Sweeting

My thoughts exactly - and M&S are totally targeting us and all our cronies!!

Thats what its all about, none of this sustainable/recycling crap!

M and S are the masters is excess packaging of foodstuffs. They wrap fruit up in polystyrene and clingfilm, every sandwich they sell comes pre-packaged in tonnes of cardboard and plastic. They are a bunch of environmental conmen, and now they tell us that a plastic bottle is green? I don't thiiiiiiiiiiink so!

Another reason to avoid to dreadful place.

We should reuse bottles, not crush them up to recycle them. Put a deposit on them. It worked for, oh, about a century in the UK and still works elsewhere. I can't remember any kid refusing to drink the nectar inside Barr's bottles because the bottle wasn't pristine. Or any adults.

(American Cream Soda. Vimto. Red Cola. Mmmmmmmm)

@ a1 white
"How about using recycled cardboard cartons? Do we need resealable bottles for 25ml of wine?"

I agree and surely the transport costs would be even less for square cartons.

I will continue to buy my wine in glass bottles with a real cork - it's all in the details!

Sorry. Plastic is not and never will be "green." This is a sham -- and poor journalism.

Total Greenwashing.

Progress?
Anyone remember a day when we returned our glass bottles (for a deposit) and these would be washed out and reused?
In Germany many bottles (still) include a deposit in the price (which you get back when returning the empties).*
Instead in UK we rely on recycling (optional & down to those who care) - and so melting down & reforming uses much more energy than washing them out.

meanwhile
M&S ship in potatoes from Israel. Surely these can be sourced from UK or a close neighbour (Ireland, France), which will travel less far and not use water where it is a scarce. (not to mention )

----
I'm disapointed in Guardain for printing this - Journalists should see through such meager attempts to 'be green' and not give them such advertising for half thought out schemes.
----
*admittedly wine bottles are not part of the scheme, but they could be in theory. Most beer and water bottles are (and many plastic bottles also).

In this country we throw away virtually all our plastic packaging, with the exception of bottles used in the home. Introducing new, small, plastic bottles will inevitably increase the proportion of plastics thrown away "on the go" - on your picnic, park bench or high street.

There are real conundrums around the environmental impact of cardboard vs plastics and one organic box delivery company is proposing to move from energy-intensive cardboard crates to more durable plastic ones. The essence of sustainability here is reusable and that is where all these small plastic bottles fall down.

This from a friend of mine working in packaging:

polyester (PIC code 1, inside your recycley triangle) requires less energy to extrude, very light to transport, ... See moreless fuel required - doesn't accidentally break in transit, reducing wasteage - and is easily recyclable through a global existing, established infrastructure into pellets ready to be re-extruded into something else.

Glass takes a hell of a lot more energy to produce & recycle into anything - it takes lots of heat to melt sand.

- often the less obviously green options being significantly more environmentally friendly than alternatives.

but I still maintain that recycled plastic (or glass) would actually be a green answer, rather than marginally better than glass.