Let's face it: Wine corks are primarily obstacles between merrymakers and their vino. After they've served their purpose of keeping wine fresh, they're pretty easy to forget.
But a recycling group that started around wineries in Napa, Calif., in 2008 wants to change that by encouraging U.S. restaurants to gather used corks so they can be recycled into footwear. The group, called ReCORK, is backed by Amorim of Portugal, the world's largest producer of natural cork wine closures, footwear company SOLE, and Amorim’s U.S. sales affiliates.
The group has spread its operations to the East Coast and into Midwestern states in the past six months. It has about 200 drop-off locations and has collected more than 8.6 million corks so far.
Glass, plastic, aluminum and paper all have more recycling cachet than corks, said Matt Hughes, partner relations manager with ReCORK. "It's not something people traditionally think of in terms of recycling," he said. But "there's even more demand than we've anticipated. We take what would otherwise just show up in landfills, and reuse it."
ReCORK says billions of natural corks end up in the garbage each year. The recycling program is meant to help protect more than 6 million acres of cork forests that dot the Mediterranean Basin.
Calgary-based Sole, which makes socks, sandals and "performance footbeds," grinds up the cork and uses it in footwear. ReCORK is looking for other applications for the recycled cork.
"There is no reason natural wine corks should end up as garbage when recycled cork can become flooring tiles, building insulation, automotive gaskets, craft materials, soil conditioner and sports equipment," ReCORK says on its Web site.
Chequers Seafood Grill in Dunwoody was the first restaurant in Georgia to sign up. Managers sent a message to a 14,000-person email list, inviting customers to donate their corks and receive a free dessert.
Last week, general manager Brantley Smith had three buckets of customer-supplied corks sitting in his office. "It’s been tremendous for us," he said.
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