Give Your Wine Corks a Second Life: Wine Dispensary Partners with ReCORK™
A wine cork may be small, but its story does not have to end when the bottle is empty.
Wine Dispensary is proud to announce a new partnership with ReCORK™, North America’s largest natural cork recycling program. Through this partnership, our customers can bring their used natural wine corks directly to our store, and we will take care of the rest.
Bring us the corks from your own bottles. Ask your family and friends to save theirs. Collect them after a dinner party, holiday gathering, tasting, wedding, or neighborhood event. Whether you have a handful or a full bag, we would be glad to receive them.
Our team will sort the collection, separate eligible natural cork from synthetic closures and other materials, consolidate the corks into efficient shipments, and cover the cost of sending them to ReCORK’s U.S. processing facility in Napa, California.
How the Program Works
Participating is simple:
-
Save the natural corks from your wine bottles.
-
Gather additional corks from friends, relatives, neighbors, or events.
-
Bring them to Wine Dispensary.
-
We will sort, inspect, pack, and ship the accepted corks to ReCORK.
There is no minimum amount required when dropping corks off with us. By combining everyone’s contributions, we can build larger shipments and reduce the need for small, inefficient individual deliveries.
ReCORK recommends shipping cork in consolidated loads of at least 15 pounds, with shipments between 15 and 30 pounds considered the most efficient range. By serving as a community collection point, we can help make that process easier and more practical for everyone.
What Corks Can Be Recycled?
ReCORK accepts natural cork closures.
Synthetic or plastic closures are not accepted through this program. Corks should also be free from wire cages, foil, plastic, and other attached materials before they are shipped.
Do not worry if you are uncertain about a particular closure. Bring it in, and our team will handle the sorting and selection process.
Who Is ReCORK?
ReCORK was founded in 2008 by Canadian footwear company SOLE and has grown into the largest natural cork recycling program of its kind in North America.
The organization collects natural cork from a network of public and private Collection Partners, then combines post-consumer wine corks with cork remnants from industrial production. The material is ground and re-formed through a proprietary process to create ReCORK Recycled Cork.
This recycled material can be used in high-performance components and consumer products as an alternative to petroleum-based foams and plastics. Rather than allowing a valuable natural material to enter the waste stream, ReCORK gives it a new purpose.
Why Natural Cork Matters
Natural cork is harvested from the bark of the cork oak tree. The tree is not cut down during harvesting. Instead, trained workers remove the outer bark by hand, allowing it to regenerate and be harvested again over the tree’s long life.
Cork oak landscapes also provide important habitat for plants, birds, and wildlife. They demonstrate how agriculture, traditional land management, and conservation can work together.
Choosing natural cork supports an economic reason to maintain these forests. Recycling it helps extend the useful life of the material after it has served its original purpose in a wine bottle.
A Small Action with a Larger Purpose
The wine industry depends on agriculture, healthy landscapes, thoughtful production, and long-term stewardship. Sustainability is not one single action. It is a series of practical choices made by growers, producers, retailers, restaurants, and customers.
This partnership is one of the ways Wine Dispensary can contribute.
You save the corks. We will sort them, consolidate them, and pay to ship them to ReCORK. Together, we can keep a renewable natural material in use and out of the trash.
Bring your cork collection by Wine Dispensary during your next visit, and ask your family and friends to start saving theirs too.
Every cork counts.
