If you’re like me, you hate to throw anything into the garbage that can be recycled.
Which is why it’s bothered me for years to throw away wine bottle corks when I know they are bio-degradable. I’ve tried putting them in the compost but, unless you are prepared to shred them or spend several years waiting, they just come out as the same lumps they where when they went in.
Then one evening a couple of months ago, I wandered into the Wine Studio at the Sherwood Forrest Shopping Centre and saw a Bag-a-Cork display. It explained all about a recycling program that could potentially divert the 100 million corks a year that are used in Ontario (reducing required landfill space by 2,500 cubic metres) and raise much-needed funds for the Girl Guides of Ontario.
What a great idea.
You take a plastic bag hanging on the display and collect the corks you would otherwise toss away. When the bag is full, you return it to one of several participating restaurants, retail outlets, LCBOs, etc. around the city. You dump the bag out and take it home to collect more corks.
Then the Girl Guides sort the material and sell it to Jelinek Corks in Oakville, one of the program’s sponsors. They recycle the cork and sell it for use in everything from shoe soles to buoys to the nose cone of the Space Shuttle.
Warren Porter of Iron Gate Cellarage in Toronto, who developed the program, says Jelinek is now working on a new product that will use the cork in floor tiles by cutting it into little cross-sections to create mini-mosaic tiles.
“That gives us the ability to convert cork into a product right here in Ontario and complete the circle,” said Porter.
Just launched in February, Bag-a-Cork is going well.
“Half of this is the educational process for the girls,” said Porter.
The whole process is described in detail, complete with participating locations, at www.bag-a-cork.org.
Cork is harvested from the bark of cork trees, mostly in Portugal. Only when it is 43 years old and on its third harvest is the bark smooth enough for corks. Each cork tree can be harvested 15-18 times.
“If cork is not used, the value of the cork declines and then the woodlot could be plowed under,” said Porter. “When you use cork, it keeps the forest living.”
Here I was thinking I was improving my health with Chateauneuf-de-Pape and Barbaresco (or more truthfully Cotes-du-Rhone and Chianti) when I was really saving the forests of Europe.
Ain’t that a corker?