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Convenient AND Environmentally friendly packaging
“Green is good, even when it comes to your reds and whites.”
Huon Hooke, Sydney Morning Herald
“Is this the future?”
Ralph Kyte-Powell, The Age
“The new-age, eco cask comes with the promise of better quality.”
Shane Maguire, The Advertiser
“Cask wine is so terribly 1970 compared to these very ‘now’ environmentally friendly vessels.”
Ben Canaider, The Age
In 2005, the Liquor Board of Ontario (Canada) stated that one of their goals was to reduce waste of non-glass packaging by 10 million kgs per year; they then requested that suppliers present non-glass packaging alternatives.
From our perspective, we wanted to ensure that if we offered our wines in alternative packaging we needed to be confident that the packaging technology would allow us to;
- Guarantee the quality of the wine in the pack was equal to that of our bottled wines
- Offer a pack with environmental credentials that were better than bottles
Our research led us to Tetra Pak, a Swedish company that has been producing packaging that is now referred to as “environmentally friendly” since 1952. Remember Sunny Boys? The Tetra Aseptic Prisma (we thought B-Pak was easier) is the 20th century incarnation of the same technology.
The B-Pak is made predominantly from paper (74%), combined with polyethylene (22%) creating a taint free barrier for the wine and aluminium foil (4%) providing a barrier to air and light. All of this with no risk of cork taint as the B-Pak is sealed with a tamper evident screw cap.
- Polyethylene
- Paper
- Polyethylene
- Aluminum foil
- & 6. Double layer of polyethylene
As we were planning to supply the Long Flat wines in both packaging formats, bottles and B-Paks, we wanted to ensure that the integrity of the new packaging was beyond question. After an extensive review of the technology we were convinced; we could guarantee that the quality of the wine in a B-Pak would be exactly the same as a bottle (hence the name B-Pak).
We then turned our thoughts to the environmental credentials of the B-Pak. To start, we were impressed by the fact that the majority of the B-Pak was produced using paper sourced only from forests that were managed using sustainable forestry practices. Separate to this the environmental credentials of a B-Pak (1 Litre) are very impressive when compared to a glass bottle (750ml). Click here for environmental credentials.
Here are the top 5 reasons why choosing the environmentally responsible Long Flat B-Pak is good for the environment and for you.
- Made mainly from paper, a renewable resource
- Reduces packaging waste by 90%
- Reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 75%
- Reduces energy by 50%
- It tastes good!
Don’t take our word for it; see what everyone else is saying.
In today’s increasingly “green” conscious world, it is challenging to wade through all of the information available, in order to make an informed decision. We believe that the Life Cycle Inventory or LCI is the best approach as it takes into consideration the impact that a product has on the environment from the “cradle to the grave”; that is it measures the impact of a product from raw material extraction through to disposal of the container. The methodology for the analysis is consistent with the methodology for Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) as described in ISO 14040 and 14041.
The information presented below evaluates three types of wine packaging; a 1 Litre Tetra Prisma (we call it a B-Pak), a 750ml PET bottle and a 750ml glass bottle. The Lifecycle Inventory as presented includes five phases of the lifecycle; material production, container fabrication, transportation to winery, distribution and post consumer waste management.
Energy Requirements
- There is a correlation between the system weight and energy requirements. The Tetra Prisma system has the lowest weight per delivered volume of wine and the lowest total energy requirement, conversely the glass bottle which has the highest weight, has the highest total energy requirements.
Solid Wastes
- The weight of post consumer waste is directly related to the weight of the container system.
The Tetra Prisma system has the lowest weight per delivered volume of wine and the lowest solid wastes. The glass system has the highest weight per delivered volume of wine and the highest total solid wastes. - The solid wastes of the container system were not sensitive to a change in waste management scenarios.
Greenhouse Gas Emissions
- The Tetra Prisma has the lowest total energy and well as the lowest greenhouse gas emissions; the glass systems have the highest total energy as well as the highest greenhouse gas emissions.