Working Together Toward a Zero Waste Wine Industry
The North Bay Zero Waste Collective is a group of passionate wine industry professionals addressing gaps in the current recycling options available in Napa County. The inception of this collective grew out of a breakout session at the 2023 RISE Climate & Wine Symposium, where local industry leaders gathered to find a solution to common waste problems. What started as a discussion about what to do with the excess cardboard generated from winery production has evolved into an effective collective turning waste into a resource.
This dedicated group, led by Megan Hernandez and Brooke Shenk, made connections that enabled wineries to work together to pool waste streams, collect a sizable quantity, and make it a resource that could be collected efficiently, either at St. Supéry Winery or the Wine Service Collective. One major waste item is stretch wrap - the thin plastic film that gets wrapped around each pallet of goods to secure them for transport. The destination for stretch wrap was historically the landfill, but now gets baled and made into standardized resin pellets. These pellets can then either be made into new stretch wrap or used to make building materials like Trex decking.
With the success of their drop off programs, and the integration of the Conservation Corp North Bay to assist in pick ups, the Zero Waste Collective was able to expand their services and take on other hard-to-recycle items in the wine industry, such as PET Liner (the backing from wine bottle labels). The Zero Waste Collective works to find buyers for the materials, diverts material from the landfill, and creates a circular economy.
“I’ve been doing this for 20 years, and I’ve never seen a grassroots program like this. The passion was absolutely incredible around this group of people trying to figure out how to do the right thing.”
- Mark Huber, Head of Business Development for iSustain
The Collective has evolved from a group of local activists with a common problem to an active community initiative that tackles one industry recycling issue after another. Finding the right buyer for each material shows transparency and builds trust: pallet wrap can be made into new pallet wrap; cardboard can be recycled into new paper products; glass bottles can be made into new glass bottles; corks can be repurposed into turf; macrobins (the big plastic bins used for harvest and moved by a forklift) can be pooled to be made into plastic pallets; used tin capsules can be sold and melted down to fund another community project - the Teacher’s Resource Center - which uses the sales of the infinitely reusable tin to fund supplies for local public school teachers.
With co-sponsorship from the Napa Valley Vintners, the Zero Waste Collective has launched its latest initiative of lab plastics and nitrile gloves collection. Gloves and hard lab plastics are used among wineries in sample collection, analysis, etc. Easy accessibility to recycle these items has not been available to all wineries until now. With excitement for the circular economy growing, this sort of collaboration makes it possible for Zero Waste Collective to continue to expand its collections.
An added benefit of recycling more is reduced landfill and waste costs. The County of Napa estimates that wineries can divert up to 90% of the waste materials they produce out of the landfill. Brooke Shenk, co-chair of the Zero Waste Collective and winemaker at St. Supéry, says they were able to save $8,000 by diverting materials through these programs. As part of the community initiative, Napa Green regularly shares information about new recycling streams with its members, and shares the latest hard-to-recycle items with the ZWC so there is always an ongoing conversation to meet the needs of the industry.
Now, more than 100 wineries and businesses across Napa and Sonoma counties are participating in this industry-focused recycling program, and other community leaders are joining in to help amplify this success.
“What we love about this program is that it shows the power of working as a community to solve problems. We make a greater impact when we work together.”
- Marisa Taylor, Winery Program Manager at Napa Green
If you want to learn more about zero waste in the wine industry reach out to nvzerowaste@gmail.com, visit their website www.wineindustryzerowaste.com.
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