Does this new glass tax mean we'll be drinking claret out of cardboard?

Telegraph

28-03-2025

I approach with trepidation stemming, admittedly, in no small part from snobbery. The bottle is tall and flat – it fits through my letterbox. It takes up minimal fridge space, and doesn't roll if recumbent. But when I open it there's no satisfying popping of a cork, nor the clink of a metallic screw cap, even though it houses the very same thing: wine. It is a plastic container and, despite the connotations – that it's cheap, unsophisticated, will end up ensnaring a poor sea creature, or possibly in their gut – it's perfectly good wine at that.
My girlfriend takes a little convincing. She tries some, pausing to ponder. 'I don't know. It's nice, but all I can think about is the packaging. It makes me think it looks cheap.' Yet I'm a fan: fresh, zingy, with a hint of hazelnut, it's a thoroughly decent white Burgundy, and no worse than I'd expect for £11.70.
Could this be the future? It's possible, and The Wine Society certainly thinks so.
This is one of four wines in a new format introduced permanently by the member-owned cooperative last year, following a trial. There is also a chardonnay, a pinot noir and a Beaujolais-Villages, all French, in the catchily named recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET) range. It represents less than one per cent of The Wine Society's collection, but is not the only alternative packaging it has introduced, with bag-in-box also trialled in 2023. 'Both were really successful, particularly bag-in-box; we couldn't cope with demand,' says director of wine Pierre Mansour. This year bag-in-box is expected to hit seven per cent of overall sales, up from virtually zero two years ago.
The rPET is taking longer to take off, yet The Wine Society is persisting, if on a small scale, as it scores surprisingly highly environmentally, says Dom de Ville, director of sustainability and social impact. The cooperative has also reduced its average glass bottle weight by 29 grams over the past year – by using thinner bottles made with less glass – as part of the Bottle Weight Accord, signed by several retailers including Lidl, Waitrose and Berry Bros & Rudd. 'The biggest impact to The Wine Society's carbon footprint is glass,' explains Mansour, describing a 'journey' to reduce glass-bottle waste.
Why does this matter? On 1 April, drinks manufacturers will be hit with what many are calling a 'bottle tax' or 'glass tax', which is set to upend the industry. A wedge of lime in a bottle of Corona, the classic Coke that tastes better out of frosty, curvy glass, or the clink as a mixer of Fever-Tree tonic gets poured into your gin. Could they all be under threat?
The policy, called extended producer responsibility (EPR), was announced six years ago by the May government, and after multiple delays is finally being introduced. It is seen as a net-zero levy, intended to simplify how we pay for recycling by transferring the cost from taxpayers to the businesses responsible for packaging. Only businesses with a turnover of more than £2 million that supply or import more than 50 tonnes of packaging will have to pay. The revenue, the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) says, will be given to local authorities to improve recycling management, including household collection. (Businesses already pay for recycling; The Wine Society expects EPR to add £1 million to its costs, up from £400,000 now.) The ultimate purpose is to encourage businesses to reduce waste and CO2 emissions, and Defra expects about 80 per cent of the costs of EPR to be passed on to consumers, meaning yearly household expenditure could increase by £56.
While plastic and aluminium are also impacted, glass has been hit hardest, as fees are based on weight. 'The principle of EPR is to collect, sort and recycle more waste and more glass, so we essentially support the principle,' says Nick Kirk, technical director at British Glass. But when the illustrative fees were announced, 'we were surprised how high they were for glass'.
And while many business leaders agree companies should pay for the waste they produce, the implementation of the new policy has been questioned, as has the timing. Along with employer National Insurance contributions and the minimum wage rising next month, alcohol duty having increased in February and continued inflation, EPR could add £1 to a bottle of wine, says Miles Beale, chief executive of the Wine and Spirit Trade Association (WSTA), with 12p directly from EPR.
'It's not going to be less than that, and it could well be more within a year,' although for beer, which is usually held in smaller containers, the rise will be lower – an estimated 5-7p. Beale says delays to the deposit return scheme – which will see a refundable deposit paid on certain containers – until October 2027 (which will affect aluminium, steel and PET packaging) should be matched by postponing EPR.
'The EPR is a tax on consumers, as all taxes ultimately are,' says Maxwell Marlow, director of public affairs at the Adam Smith Institute. 'This is just another wheeze for the Government to make more money. We will see supermarket prices rise higher than normal to cover the scheme's expenses, and it is also a massive blow to the hospitality sector, which relies on glass to serve drinks.'
It has left many in the industry reeling, from breweries to importers, soft-drink producers to pub companies. Andrew Opie, director of food and sustainability at the British Retail Consortium, believes it will cost retailers an additional £2 billion. Some companies have hinted they'll look to sell more overseas, while others believe consumers will be left with less choice. 'We think beer bottles will die off in the long term,' Mark Kelly of Sambrook's Brewery in London told The Telegraph.
The drinks industry has 'had a lot to worry about in the last 12 months, and this is now absolutely at the top', says Beale. He is 'perfectly comfortable' with the principle of producers paying for recycling, but, as we speak in March, the final costs are still unknown, and are estimated at £240 a tonne for glass, up from the previously predicted £110-215. 'We support the outcome EPR is meant to deliver, who wouldn't? Improved environmental outcomes, great.' But it could result in a move to plastics and other materials seen by many as environmentally inferior. 'We know glass is quite carbon-intensive to produce, but we also know it's infinitely recyclable and does not have some issues of plastic, such as microplastics. Oddly the Government simply by the design of these schemes seems to be pushing in the direction of less environmentally friendly packaging.'
A Defra spokesperson said: 'We are committed to cracking down on waste and boosting recycling. Extended producer responsibility for packaging is a vital first step for our packaging reforms. Together our reforms will create 21,000 jobs and help stimulate more than £10 billion investment in recycling over the next decade. It means taxpayers won't foot the bill for managing waste. We continue to work closely with businesses, including in the glass industry, on this programme.'
Wine is perhaps the drink most inherently linked to glass. We get through plenty of beer bottles, but far more cans, and draught makes up 93.7 per cent of beer in pubs, bars and restaurants. Soft drinks bottled in glass emit an air of sophistication, but cans and plastic bottles are commonplace. Spirits are mostly sold in heavy bottles, but are purchased less frequently.
But wine is a weekly occurrence for many, and the vast majority comes in glass. The receptacle is part of the appeal; from an elegant, slender bottle of riesling to an aged claret in thick glass, it can connote class and quality. Some sparkling wine requires a heavy glass bottle for its secondary fermentation, to prevent the bottle from exploding.
Yet glass is more energy-intensive to create than aluminium or plastic, and heavier to transport, requiring more fuel. It is also energy-intensive to recycle, though it can be recycled in perpetuity, unlike plastic.
EPR will spur innovation, experts say. Aldi now sells wine in paper bottles, made using recycled paperboard lined with a plastic pouch, which it says will vastly reduce its carbon footprint.
At a tasting in 2024, Telegraph wine expert Victoria Moore said about five per cent of Aldi's wines were packaged in alternative materials, including 'eco-flat' plastic similar to The Wine Society's. Those bottles can be packed into crates much more efficiently, allowing more to be shipped per container. Waitrose's bag-in-box range has grown by 39 per cent over the past year, and its cans are up too. 'Where it is more convenient, customers seem very happy to switch to alternative packaging,' says the supermarket's wine buyer, Emma Penman.
'We'd expect to see heavyweight glass disappear at lower price points, in itself no bad thing,' says Andrew Stead, wine director at Laithwaites, where bag-in-box, Tetra Pak and paperboard Frugalpac bottles now represent two per cent of sales. 'While they look to be cheaper under the new EPR rules, there's understandable customer concern about plastic and specifically nanoplastics in food and drinks, so we're not forecasting a rise.'
Perhaps the greatest hurdle is psychological. Wine is a ritualistic pursuit: opening the bottle, the pour, placing the bottle in the middle of the table or in a cooler. Bottles suggest quality, in many cases with reason. Some wines last decades in glass, even improve.
The restaurateur, wine expert and author Dan Keeling, whose Noble Rot stable is famous for its creative wine list, agrees with the philosophical superiority of glass. 'Wine by the keg has been a thing in restaurants for some time now. But while there are benefits to the environment, there's something a bit less satisfying about ordering wine by the glass rather than sharing a bottle with a friend. The anticipation, act and jeopardy of pulling the cork from an old bottle of Chablis are all part of a unique experience.'
And, perhaps giving himself away as someone whose first career was in the music industry, Keeling adds, 'Doing away with glass bottles will do for fine wine what MP3 did for music – lessen a ritual that at its best is magical. Sure, cork taint ruins some bottles, even the best crus. But it's not just the sound waves or liquid that matters, and I'd rather risk a scratch across a favourite vinyl album, crackles and all, than a dumbed down experience.'
Cans are not associated with quality or the dinner table. 'We are working on genuine paper bottles which would be compostable or recycled with standard paper and card,' says Andrew Stead. 'Wine customers like the ceremony of opening a glass bottle, many still prefer cork, and arguably as you push it into other formats it loses a key visual marker that it is, indeed, wine. There is a strong element of the traditional to the enjoyment of food and wine, which glass plays into.'
There's another issue: appellations with exacting conventions. Picpoul de Pinet is sold in a tall green bottle, for example. Burgundy and claret have distinct shapes too – allowing you to tell the difference if the label rots off in the cellar. Getting producers to agree to sell their wine in plastic or cans is a challenge, but possible: see The Wine Society's Burgundy and Beaujolais.
What about beer and cider? Nick Kirk says many large companies are privately telling him they're planning to shift away from glass. The producer of Rattler cider announced a move to cans to offset £700,000 in expected EPR fees.
Barry Watts of the Society of Independent Brewers and Associates (Siba) says 90 per cent of its members are exempt from EPR payments – in theory. In practice, fees will be passed on by companies that aren't, such as bottle producers or bottling facilities. An estimated 7p on a 500ml bottle doesn't sound like much, but many smaller breweries only make 2p profit on a bottle. 'It completely wipes out those margins,' says Watts.
One worried brewer is Mark Anderson of Maxim Brewery, which produces Double Maxim, a north-east brown ale first launched in 1901 – making it older than Newcastle Brown – and beloved in its 500ml format. 'The tradition of bottles of Double Maxim could be lost in the future, through these strange taxes which to me just seem a money-making scheme, as opposed to doing something positive about waste.'
Once EPR is added to rising duty, wages and National Insurance contributions, the bottles will cost 15p more to produce – with a greater increase in pubs as they generally need to retain a 50 per cent margin, says Anderson – 'which is disastrous. It's one of the worst pieces of legislation to come across in 40 years in the industry.' Though his brewery is officially exempt, the ale is bottled at Robinsons Brewery in Stockport, which isn't. 'There'll be a move away from glass bottles,' he predicts, with cans an option in the future.
Robinsons, which owns about 250 pubs and hotels, is committed to glass, seeing it as the most recyclable option. 'I've been on umpteen webinars with Defra, and every time they're challenged on the cost of it, they are absolutely open, saying we expect you to pass this on to the customer,' says bottling operations manager Rick Fisher.
Not everyone is against EPR. 'From a reporting aspect, especially at first, it's going to be a bit burdensome,' says Adam Herriott, senior specialist at Wrap, an environmental NGO. 'But on the whole, as a piece of legislation, it's proven to be effective [in other countries], and I don't see why it can't be effective in the UK. Brands can control what they place on to the market, consumers can't. EPR is designed to incentivise them to make that change.'
Does Herriott expect big changes, then? 'If you're a very high-end whisky, you're probably not going to sell to your customer in plastic bottles; it doesn't meet the brand.' Yet, he says, showing me a paperboard Aldi wine bottle, 'being a bit of a circular-economy evangelist, for me marketing is not an excuse.'
Is the glass bottle on borrowed time? At the lower end there will be innovation: lighter glass bottles, PET and paper bottles, and more wine – and beer – sold in cans. At the higher end, change will be less visible. But while alternative packaging may eat into glass's dominance, we're a long way from retiring the corkscrew. Wine bottles will be with us for a long time to come.
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