TivoliVredenburg gets a pilot for reusable wine bottles

While reusing beer bottles is the most normal thing in the world, reusing wine bottles still seems far away. This is now changing at the initiative of Walraven Sax. In collaboration with beer brewery AB InBev and music venue TivoliVredenburg, the wine distributor will launch a national pilot for a circular bottle system at the end of April.

The wine industry is the largest consumer of glass in the Netherlands. In the Dutch catering sector, no less than 90 percent of glass bottles end up as waste. This amounts to more than 450 million bottles per year. The glass recycling process seems sustainable, but is quite inefficient. Melting glass into new glass requires enormous amounts of energy. Fortunately, there is a more sustainable option: reusing glass bottles.

Circular wine bottles

Cantina alla Spina, a Dutch start-up, has developed a reusable system for wine bottles that are filled locally and washed after use. Walraven Sax saw the opportunity here to jointly develop a national system for a circular bottle. Because why is this important? Calculations show that up to 51 percent CO2 can be saved through bulk transport and the use of reusable bottles. This also results in 70 percent lower water consumption. The water is only used for rinsing. This results in significantly less water consumption than when melting and reforming glass.

Testing ground for innovative ideas

To test the idea in practice, Walraven Sax has joined forces with two partners: catering supplier AB InBev and music venue TivoliVredenburg. TivoliVredenburg is one of the venues in the Netherlands that perform best in the field of sustainability and is therefore a pioneer in embracing sustainable initiatives within the catering landscape. “We would like to be a testing ground where our partners can test innovative ideas in the field of sustainability,” says business director Suzanne van Dommelen.

If the pilot proves successful, Walraven Sax wants to make this system the future for the entire wine industry. “Our ultimate goal is that all wine bottles in the Netherlands are reused,” says commercial director Manuela Feijoo Jimeno of Walraven Sax. Partner and catering supplier AB InBev will take care of the logistics part of the pilot. The pilot will start at the end of April and will last three months.

^{Photography: Juri Hiensch}