Using compressed recycled cardboard with a plastic liner inside, PaperBoy is the brainchild of packaging company Ecologic Brands and Truett-Hurst winery who claim the carbon footprint of their ‘molded pulp’ bottles is 67 per cent smaller than that of its glass cousins, and weighs a whopping 85 per cent less.

How does it work? 

Well essentially, this is premium wine packed in a lightweight and recyclable cardboard bottles – so it’s easy to transport to any sort of occasion from fishing trips to pool parties. How does this really equate to being eco friendly you may ask? Well, according to CEO Phil Hurst in a recent interview with Fastco Design, if the 207 million cases of wines shipped around the country each year were packaged in the light-weight PaperBoy bottle, it would save roughly 50 million gallons of diesel and 560,000 tons of CO2. The bottles are also collapsible which means they can be recycled after use.

Is it really different to ‘box wine’ as we know it?

Well, the jury’s out on this one. Box wines have been around for ages. They usually (but not always) offer less expensive wines to consumers. The essential difference between box wines and cardboard bottle wines is 1.) Premium wines are used in cardboard bottle packaging and 2.) The cardboard wine bottles are more stylish…that’s a fact!

Will you change your purchasing habits if you could buy wine in a cardboard bottle and not a cardboard box?

That’s completely your call. Both options are recyclable and therefore eco-friendly. So what’s the verdict? Well, we say: Drink, be merry and save the planet, one sip at a time – whichever way suits!