What makes natural cork environmentally special?
Natural cork is made up of billions of cells. This gives cork its buoyant, elastic quality as well as the ability to absorb and retain nearly 9 grams of CO2 throughout the life of a wine cork. And with 13 billion corks sold each year worldwide, cork is an important source of CO2 retention. When you take the time to compare the features of natural cork against petroleum-based plastic plugs and aluminum screwcaps the difference is significant. It comes down to the fact that our source is renewable. Theirs is not! In a recent PricewaterhouseCoopers study of the life cycle analysis of wine closures, CO2 emissions in aluminum screwcaps were 24 times higher than those from a natural cork closure, while plastic stoppers were 10 times greater than cork. Check out www.corkfacts.com for more information about the study.
