Organic wine drinkers: Give your corks a new life

Wine drinkers: You can now up-cycle your corks! In addition to the juice pouches and cookie wrappers and other detritus from our grab-n-go culture, the eco-company TerraCycle's now accepting wine corks -- both natural and synthetic -- which the company will turn "into cool products that will be available nationally at major retailers."

It's unclear what exactly these products will be, but the illustration provided on TerraCycle's Web page looks like a doormat will be one of the goods produced.

Best part of this dealio: While other TerraCycle programs require you to sign up and are really geared towards groups and organizations, this wine cork program makes up-cycling easy for mere individuals. If you've got fewer than 100 corks, all you have to do is mail them in to TerraCycle, ATTN: Cork Brigade, 121 New York Ave., Trenton, NJ 08638.

Got more than 100 corks? Then go ahead and sign up with TerraCycle to get prepaid return shipping labels.

Image courtesy of TerraCycle

Comments

[Brooke]

I really do like the idea of recycling everything possible but I have to question the idea of recycling a product into a completely different product. Sure, it makes sense on a small scale, but when you start to take a billion corks and make a billion rugs -- what happens when people no longer want those rugs? At some point, isn't something going to get thrown out? Wouldn't it make more sense to recycle corks into new corks and candy wrappers into new candy wrappers ?

[M]

Brooke, unfortunatly not everything can be recycled back into the same item it originally was and there will probably always be some waste, but you do bring up a good point.

A really good example for this inability to turn materials back into the original is with some plastics, like those used in plastic bags. Rarely do they become new bags unless people are cutting them up and making a yarn or if the bags are fused together. On the other hand, materials like glass can easily be made back into new glass products.

There is also something to be said for the necessary processing to get it back into a "usable" state as well. Maybe it takes tons of energy to process recycable materials, but you could also reuse them (like wrappers), by simply sewing them into something new. This is where the "reuse" of "reduce, reuse and recycle" comes in. Not many people I know would buy a clif bar with a pre-used, sewn on wrapper.

You do need to look at what will happen with the corks once the rugs are considered to be used "used up" as you mentioned. A common way to recycle corks is for flooring, but also insulation. I am pretty sure "used up" cork rugs can become insulation.