Recycling Wine Corks
By Karina | January 2, 2008
As you’re cleaning up after your New Years festivities, did you find yourself with a lot of wine corks on your hands? Hey, no judgment — sometimes there is just a whole lot of wine to be drank. Especially on New Years Eve, when we traditionally pop open champagne or sparkling wine at midnight.
The cork oak is a pretty amazing tree. It’s an evergreen, and as the bark thickens, it can be stripped off of the tree in order to make all the cork boards and wine corks we’re accustomed to. Stripping the bark doesn’t hurt the tree, either, and the bark will regenerate in several years. The cork can be harvested every 10 to 12 years. Talk about a sustainable resource! The cork industry is very quick to point out that cork trees are consistent and valuable CO2 sinks, too, so there are other environmental benefits. On top of this, the bark is harvested by hand so there are no heavy machines involved. In Portugal (home of most of the worlds cork production) the cork oak is protected and may not be cut down.
Anyway: I imaging you standing there with corks in hand that have been fished from the garbage wondering what the heck do you do with all those left over bits of cork? Jenn pointed out that we can repurpose corks (there are lots of ideas here of various levels of dorkitude), but cork is also a valuable commodity. A wine cork can be ground or used as-is to create other products. As cork has become the darling of the sustainable wood industry (cork flooring, for example, is a very popular choice) recycling initiatives have sprung up around the world.
In the US, Yemm and Hart accept wine corks and use them to create cork tiles:
Yemm & Hart has determined that the most sustaining type of product is a tile. We will produce tiles that resemble the image at the left in 36″ squares, 1/4″, 3/8″ and 1/2″ thicknesses. They will be sanded on one side and ready to be adhered to a floor, wall or other substrate. When sales have been made of the tiles, then the wine cork contribution experiment will come to an end and it will evolve into wine cork redemption. This is where Yemm & Hart will set a price and pay for wine corks sent to them based upon yet to be established rules. Initial contributors of cork stoppers will receive preferential pricing on Wine Cork Tiles.
From their website: send corks by USPS or UPS to Wine Cork Recycling, Yemm & Hart Ltd, 610 South Chamber Dr, Fredericktown MO 63645.
Or, if you’re in Canada, check here for a local initiative. In Canada the Girl Guides have been collecting corks for several years!
Full Tiny Choices disclosure: I was at a party on NYE and I did consider taking home all of the extra corks with me to recycle. I didn’t do it though. I think I got distracted by the dancing and then it was time to leave in a big hurry. I did take a few corks home from my dad’s house after xmas eve dinner, and I am planning to start to collect them at work as well.
Additional Resources
- Ask Umbra tackles cork recycling
- Lots more info about cork recycling here, including additional resources around the world.
- The wine industry has a page all about corks!
Photo by flickr user stewart via creative commons.
Topics: Activism, Home, Waste |
A DIY project for corks from bottles of bubbly: DWR’s 5th annual Champagne Chair Contest!
oh, those chairs are so incredibly cute! and designed fabulously.
i’ve always saved corks from wine bottles. i finally had enough to make my own decorative cork board. i found a frame that i liked and removed the glass. then glued the corks to a cardboard backing in a pattern that i liked. i think it looks quite nice next to my “bar” area in the dining room … and it can be used to hold wine related items since it’s a cork board! :)
send us a picture, cat! would love to see the cork board.
Another thing to do with wine corks is to make korknisse ornaments. Okay, you might not reuse lots of corks this way, but they are awfully cute and very quick and easy to make.
those are SO CUTE! that is the kind of thing you can give away, too - too many heart shaped cork wreaths aren’t really appreciated by the receiver.
I know it’s not really recycling them, but I had a coworker show me her glass of corks that her and her husband had collected over the years - avid wine drinkers! Each one had a date on it and she showed them off in a huge brandy glass in her kitchen.
I’ve also seen corks made into bulletin boards, as another commenter mentioned. I think those look so neat, because it recycles the corks and turns them into something useful, unique, and stylish! I’ve heard that cutting the cork in half lengthwise before gluing it to the bulletin board works well, too, since you only have to use half the corks and it’s still enough cork to stick a pin into.
Very cool post! :)
thanks Cara! you know what? a friend of mine who is ALSO named Cara tipped me off to the recycling!
I remembered that Readymade had a cork challenge a while back. The winner made a “rug” out of 4,500 corks. Wow. Sort of a giant cork trivet. I wonder what it feels like to walk on. Here’s the url:
http://readymademag.com/printarchive/index.pl?id=980
You can also compost cork … but the recycling options given here are better, for sure!
[…] Recycling Wine Corks […]
I had a ton of corks and finally came up with a unique use for them. I used hot glue to cover a plain basket with corks, lined it with a cute fabric, and made the most charming picnic basket, perfect for a romantic afternoon.
For lots of photos and full instructions on how to do this yourself, check out my site.
it’s adorable!