IMPLEMENT: WINERY WATER & SOLID WASTE

Conserving Water in the Winery Contributes to Adaptation and Mitigation

California vintners recognize the need to conserve water and improve efficiency to ensure the future availability of quality water – for agriculture, communities, and the environment. Increased droughts expected with climate change will create more pressure on wineries to conserve water. Reducing water used in the winemaking, cleaning and sanitation processes begins with identifying opportunities for efficiency improvements through a water assessment and comprehensive water management program. Being climate smart in the winery to maximize water use efficiency reduces GHG emissions by using less energy to pump, heat and move water.

Effective Solid Waste Management Can Reduce a Winery’s Carbon Footprint

Reducing and recycling solid waste helps conserve natural resources, reduce greenhouse gases and decrease costs for businesses. Monitoring and reducing solid waste can have a significant impact on a winery's overall carbon footprint by reducing both the energy required to create new items from raw materials and the emissions associated with sending items to landfill. Reducing, reusing, and recycling materials provides greenhouse gas emissions reductions and other benefits through:

Reducing methane emissions by reducing organic material sent to landfill.
Repurposing organic material to increase soil health.
Recycling materials and reducing the energy (and associated GHGs) needed to create a new product from raw materials.

A Climate Smart Approach to Winery Water & Solid Waste Promotes a Circular Supply Chain

A climate smart approach for both winery water and solid waste aims to create a circular supply chain by implementing the three Rs: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. A circular supply chain attempts to eliminate waste and continually use resources. Below are some examples of how winery water and solid waste can be managed with reducing, reusing and recycling in mind.

Reduce:

Water: Conserve water (e.g., monitor and measure, address hot spots such as sanitation, seek vendors who use less water in the manufacturing of the products you purchase).
Solid Waste: Reduce consumption and/or explore alternative products of materials used in the winery (such as lighter weight glass) and work with vendors to reduce the packaging used for winery materials.

Reuse:

Water: Hot water used to clean barrels can be filtered and re-used several times, drastically reducing overall water usage for this practice.
Solid Waste: Compost food, pomace, lees and cardboard – doing so can divert 50% or more of winery’s solid waste stream. Work with vendors to take back packaging used to deliver materials. Cardboard case boxes used in the winery can be broken down carefully and reused up to five times for rebottling and moving wine back into the tasting room, which also results in cost savings.

Recycle:

Water: Process water from the winery that is treated properly can be used for irrigation in vineyards and winery landscaping or alternatively discharge it on land to recharge the local aquifer.
Solid Waste: Collect and recycle single-use plastics (e.g., pallet wrap). Once all reuse options have been exhausted for non-compostable items such as paper and glass products, recycle these items using local recycling facilities.

Resources:

Solid Waste - Implementation Guide: Provides details on how to conduct a solid waste audit and how to reduce, reuse and recycle winery materials such as glass, cardboard, pallets, corks, plastic, metal, food waste, etc.

Winery Water - Implementation Guide: Provides details on creating a water conservation management program to conserve water throughout the winery operations.