Which has more plastic and aluminium waste: advent calendars made from miniature bottles or ecoSIP pouches? The answer may well surprise you!
It's that time of year when, unbeknownst to most, retailers are starting to think about... yes... their Christmas offerings. I kid you not. This will be a tough year for the Wine Advent Calendar market. The combined effect of the duty rises and EPR fees mean that it will be a real struggle to keep the retail prices down to sub-£100 for calendars using 187ml mini bottles. 🍾 We decided to do a bit of analysis to see how much the impact would be, so we bought a conventional advent calendar, broke it apart into all the different materials, and weighed it all. The figures were, quite simply, staggering. In total, there was more than 6.5kg of packaging waste! Broken down, there was >4kg of glass, 2.5kg of cardboard, 62 grams of plastic and 38 grams of Aluminium. That's 2.5kg of cardboard just to keep that fragile glass safe!! ♻️ Next year, EPR (Enhanced Producer Responsibility) fees – designed to shift responsibility for recycling costs from local government to the producers – will add around £2 to the cost. I'd argue that glass is being treated with kiddie gloves and should be far more than £240/tonne, but that's just me! 💷 The same calendar will also now incur £20.16 of duty, based on an average of 13% ABV – up £1.47 or 8% since last year. Of course, there's VAT on that too, so there's a total of nearly £4 to add to the costs since 2024. A real headache. *What's the solution?* Well, we repeated the same exercise for an advent calendar with 24 x 125ml ecoSIP containers and there's only 683 grams of waste, meaning EPR drops to just 18 pence. Duty drops to £11.52. In total, with VAT, there's £12.50 less to pay: a very significant saving. This demonstrates the financial advantages of moving to ecoSIP! Plus, a small glass a day is a lot more responsible to promote than a 187/200ml bottle. 🍷 🌎 One other thing which blew my mind: we receive plenty of criticism for our use of plastic. We get it – nobody likes plastic. It can end up in the ocean or soil if not responsibly recycled. But here's the thing: that "glass" advent calendar had 62 grams of plastic in total: in the tape, the labels, the screw cap liners... In comparison, our calendar had less than 29 grams. That's 53% less plastic than the "glass" solution. So, if you want to reduce plastic waste, move to ecoSIP! Food for thought! Virgin Wines Laithwaites Wine John Lewis & Partners