Swedes are phenomenally good at recycling. Except when it comes to cork stoppers. But now this is about to change, starting in the town of Karlstad. This town will be the first in Sweden, in cooperation with the wine stores of Systembolaget (the Swedish alcohol monopoly), to introduce a municipal recycling system for cork stoppers.
People will be able to hand in the natural corks from their wine bottles at the municipality’s six recycling stations and three Systembolaget stores.
The used wine corks are recycled into new products (though not new cork stoppers). Recycled cork is used in the construction industry for insulation, flooring, fire protection, furniture, shoes, in the automotive industry, and even in the aerospace industry.
Since 2018, more than 550 million corks have been collected worldwide for recycling, according to Amorim in Portugal, the world’s largest cork producer. However, this is only a fraction of the roughly 12 billion cork stoppers used every year.
The French are the world champions when it comes to cork recycling.
Read more about this and about the remarkable cork oak in our feature on BKWine Magazine: The environmentally friendly cork stopper and why we should preserve the cork oak forest | Britt on Forbes. For example, we have a cork collection box in our nearest wine shop.
How is it where you live?
Read more: aktuellhallbarhet
Read: Read more on sustainability, organics and other environmental issues in wine in our upcoming book “The Wine for the Future” (in Swedish “Framtidens vin”) to be published in early 2026.
