The bottle, which is made of paper, has a reduced carbon footprint of around 90% compared with an average wine bottle, and is compostable and decomposable within a matter of weeks.
The paper bottle, which has been developed by GreenBottle, weighs only 55g compared to 500g for a glass bottle, which the developers claim it will cut transport costs significantly.
Once completely developed and tested, GreenBottle intends to sell the paper wine bottle technology to companies within the food packaging sector, and are hoping to launch the product by mid-2012.
A spokesperson for GreenBottle told FoodProductionDaily.com: “In some ways it’s a strange mix, but wine boxes have become very popular as well, so the concept has in a sense already been accepted.”
According to the company, more than 15m plastic bottles are used in the UK each year, of which many end up in landfills where they can take up to 500 years to decompose.
With the UK poised to run out of landfill space in the next seven years, GreenBottle claims it is essential that biodegradable food and drink packaging become a priority for consumers and manufacturers.
“Consumers are becoming a lot more aware of the environmental impact of food packaging, and many feel guilty about disposing of non-biodegradable applications.”
“With the paper wine bottle, we are offering an alternative, and we believe that many people will take that option to choose green rather than plastic or traditional glass bottles.”
GreenBottle, who hope to launch the bottle with a leading supermarket, already developed the world’s first paper milk bottle, which has proved popular in selected Asda stores where it has been tested.
The company’s products are currently made in Turkey, where machinery is able to produce 50 bottles a minute, but a plant is due to open in Cornwall soon.
GreenBottle inventor Martin Myerscough said: “We’re hopeful that the success we’ve had with GreenBottle in milk can be repeated with wine. It would mean an end to those morning-after trips to the bottle bank. All you would need to do is rip out the plastic lining and put the paper outer-casing in the bin or on the compost heap.”