Very handsome image, along with interpretive links, of a Cork Oak tree from Portugal at Botany Photo of the Day. Cork harvested from the bark of this tree is an eminently renewable resource.
Category: Recycling and Sustainability
Bottle it up
Luís Gil explains why cork is a better choice for stoppering wine bottles than its synthetic alternatives. Some of his arguments are not persuasive, and amount to “we’ve always done it this way,” but consider:
6) Cork is a renewable resource and cork oak forests are one of the most sustainable natural systems, providing the habitat of several endangered species and supporting one of the highest levels of biodiversity among European forests. Cork comes from the bark of the cork oak [Quercus suber], and is harvested only once every nine or ten years, without detriment to the tree.
* * *
10) Cork production is based in poor rural areas where it provides much needed jobs. About 150,000 people around the world work with cork, and it is an important part of Southern Europe and North African economies.
* * *
13) Cork sequesters carbon from the atmosphere; a cork stopper sequesters about twice is weight of CO2; all the cork stoppers produced in one year represent the CO2 pollution of about 49,000 automobiles each year.