The initiative, if successful, could help City Scape save thousands of glass bottles from the landfill this year. The program doesn’t so much recycle the bottles as it reuses them. The Joneses now use an FDA-certified method to clean and sterilize each bottle that allows them to re-use each one. And because City Scape no longer uses traditional paper labels, but has shifted to an etched label, bottles can be reused as many as 15 times, Josh says.
The Joneses estimate that the program will help them keep about 20 to 30 percent of the average 32,000 bottles they produce each year from being tossed.
As incentive, City Scape is offering $1 off a bottle of wine to all customers who bring City Scape bottles back to the winery for recycling.
“I really hope that it just opens people’s eyes to what they’re throwing away,” Josh says. “That many of the things we use in everyday life can be reused. They don’t have to go and flood a landfill.”
It wasn’t long after the Joneses bought the 12-acre vineyard and winery 2½ years ago that Greenville County announced it would no longer recycle glass. The news was a big blow to the couple, who grew up in pro-recycling families. So they began discussing solutions.
The Joneses were inspired after watching a documentary about waste in the U.S. They figured they could start with themselves.
“Twenty percent of what goes into landfills is one-time use products — plastic water bottles, plastic silverware, plastic bags,” Josh says, citing the film’s shocking statistics. “I was thinking about our business — what are we handing people that at the end of the day, it’s just a one-time thing?”
As it turns out, glass is easier to reuse than other materials, particularly when it contains a liquid, Josh says. The sterilization process is fairly simple and takes 3 to 4 seconds per bottle. The bottle must first be rinsed and then dried upside down overnight. Next, Jones uses a high-pressured food-grade sprayer to rinse with an FDA-grade approved sterilizing agent, and voila, the bottle is good as new.
“With all the shipping cost, all the manufacturing, all the CO2 emissions, it really turns out to be a little bit bigger of an impact,” Josh says.
To read the full story, visit http://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/money/business/2018/01/15/city-scape-winery-tackles-greenvilles-glass-recycling-issue-one-bottle-time/1021812001/.