Drinking Wine? Don’t Get Cork Screwed.

From Indigo Green Store's February Newsletter:
"According to Environmental News Service, “Mediterranean cork-oak forests provide 15 billion cork stoppers a year to the wine industry- a sustainable enterprise, as cork bark is harvested from live, 500-year old trees rather than dead ones but plastic and screw-top closures are growing in popularity.” If the trend for plastic closures continues to rise, that might mean a drop in the cork market which could put cork forests at risk of desertification and forest fires. What is more, the cork flooring industry is reliant on the cork wine industry’s leftovers using post-industrial waste to create a healthy and environmentally friendly alternative to other flooring. Buying cork floors could save these forests and the wildlife that live in them like the Iberian lynx, Barbary deer, and Iberian eagle as well as the tens of thousands of jobs that harvest the bark. The World Wildlife Fund is urging the wine industry to stick with cork, warning that three-quarters of the forests could be lost within 10 years."