As a retailer and wine shipper, there is nothing better than styrofoam in this day and age for a number of reasons, but I understand the hatred. We hate how many of the deliveries arrive to us packaged in styro that have the bottoms and/or tops knocked out. There are a number of producers that sell substandard styro packaging at dirt cheap prices. We pay about $8.60 for a 12 pack from our current distributor. After bubble wrap and tape, no labor included, say about $11.00 The competitors are offering up product for half the price, half the styrofoam and fat bottles, Chard, PN, don’t fit in them.
Because of that, we have packaged with bubble wrap under the styro, around each bottle and on top of the styro. Added protection in case the Samsonite gorilla is working your neighborhood.
Styro is available with ice pack slots so we can try to save the $1,000 worth of wine shipped from coast to coast because the buyer wants ground shipping in June.
To date, we’ve had three shipments in pulp sent to us that were destroyed. We have lost one shipment in styro by damage and it was a train derailment. We have lost one case of wine shipped ground in the dead of winter to Chicago that froze and pushed the corks.
They are getting better at pulp but still can’t provide adequate insulation nor equal crush resistance that styro provides. It takes me ten minutes to break down each damaged styro shipper for recycling, something I don’t enjoy, but if you demand non styro packaging, you pay full insurance value of the wine and agree to hold me harmless for your decision to use pulp.
Maybe ask the specific wineries you buy from not to ship in styro?
Get a little citrus oil or some acetone or any organic solvent and you can turn that big hunk of styro into a cup or two of hard plastic. The solvent lets the air out of the styrofoam and reduces it into a fraction of what it was. The airless styrofoam is good as glue if you use it before it hardens, or you can dump it into molds and make plastic shapes. The consistency is like melting fast food mozzarella - gummy and sticky.
Grind up the styrofoam and mix it into concrete when you’re doing a concrete project. You can make concrete/styro bricks and they’re good insulators.
As far as plastic in the environment, the city of Los Angeles is going to grind up plastic bottles and use them in pavement. They think it will take a few hundred thousand out per mile. But nobody’s talking about any leachate, etc.
Maybe Bedrock is reusing styrofoam that’s already been shipped several times. There are several retailers that take in your empty styrofoam wine containers (along with the box).
I am trying to reduce my carbon footprint in a variety of ways, and I will admit that the use of styro makes me very uneasy. But my anecdotal experience is quite different from David’s. I think styro is dramatically superior to cardboard, and I seem to remember someone here doing a little side-by-side to prove the point.
And I very rarely have problems with styro bits breaking off (unless I break them). And I don’t have cats, thank god
The town where I used to live had a recycling yard that included a bin for styrofoam, so while a bit of a pain to load up my car (and get pieces of styro all over), I would make several trips a year and wasn’t that bothered by it. But where I live now, there is no styro recycling - I have called all over and no one will take them. So they pile up in the garage, because I can’t bring myself to throw them out, hoping eventually I will find a place to recycle. Plenty of wineries have figured out how to ship without them.
Fortunately we have styro recycling here in Chicagoland. I stack them in the basement and my wife graciously loads up the vehicle. I agree the Bedrock deliveries are “messy.” I remember getting a shipment (not from Bedrock) where the capsules had a white powder on the tops. Where were those “Breaking Bad” styros recycled from?
California, where you can’t get a f’ing plastic straw, soon won’t be able to get single use toiletries at hotels, but you are guaranteed to get a big pile of Styrofoam.
As I recall Navarro gives you the option of cardboard/pulp or styrofoam. Probably a fulfillment headache but I’d love the option to ditch styro across the board. I recycle the rigid plastic ones used by Paetra, which also seems to work fine.
