Rezero gathered yesterday in Sencelles some of the first companies interested in being part of the driving group to promote the ReWine project in Mallorca. The meeting took place at Celler Son Prim, one of the wineries interested in being part of this initiative. It was attended by companies and representatives of the production sector such as Tianna Negre, Bodegas Ribas, Vins Nadal, DO Binissalem, DO Pla i Llevant and Vins de la Terra de Mallorca. The hotel sector was represented by the Riu Group, Garden Hotels and the Balearic Network of Sustainable Hotels. The constitution of this motor group initially has the support of the Mallorca Preservation Foundation.
According to initial estimates, it is calculated that only in Mallorca around 5 million bottles of wine could be produced and consumed in reusable format each year, saving around 2 kg of CO2 per reused bottle. This is the hypothesis proposed by Rezero, after the ReWine pilot experience which for 4 years has analyzed its viability in the wine sector of Catalonia and which it now wants to implement in Mallorca.
For Roser Badia (coordinator of Rezero in the Balearic Islands) “The absurdity of the current system of using and throwing away is even more serious in the case of the Balearic Islands, where the wineries have to import millions of glass bottles every year than once used and assuming they end up in glass containers. They must be exported shredded to be recycled in the peninsula with the consequent environmental and economic impact this entails. The condition of insularity and the dimensions of Mallorca make this an ideal territory in which to implement a reuse system”.
Getting to materialize a reuse circuit in Mallorca is an effort and a great challenge for the wine sector. There are many actors involved and it will be necessary to take actions at an organizational, logistical and infrastructure level to recover and put value the culture of reuse.
However, attendees agree that it is a matter of time and that the future is heading in this direction. In fact, the future is already here, as shown by the trends at the level of community, state and regional regulations, and the initiatives emerging from other nearby territories.
In the Balearic Islands, the new circularity law in the tourism sector forces hotels to change their purchasing model and their suppliers in order to adapt to the demand as pointed out by Jaume Ordinas (leader of purchasing at Garden Hotels). Projects like ReWine can allow the sector to comply with circularity plans by providing indicators to measure the use of reusable packaging. In this sense, Mallorca’s wine sector now has the opportunity to be a pioneer and lead the way.
According to Ana Riera, director of the Mallorca Preservation Foundation “people end up taking a new model when this one is implemented. Mallorca is an ideal place for a project like this”.
With all the actors involved, sharing and overcoming initial reluctance and putting together some solutions is the task that Rezero has set out to design a reuse circuit sized to the volume of the island. Nowadays, it is open to assess all possible scenarios for logistics systems, washing systems, self-organization systems, types of bottles, standardization possibilities, etc.
The same organization has launched an information and patronage platform in order to be able to add the maximum number of actors and efforts for its implementation calling on all those interested to be part of the initiative.
Companies of the motor group ReWine Mallorca
Sencelles 24th february of 2023