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Popping the cork for nature conservation: the cork campaign results

Whether champagne, the finest red wine or smooth white wine - many bottles are sealed with natural corks. These should not be thrown away after consumption. For nature - and for the cranes.

Numerous corks lie in a large bag. Photo.aussiedlerbote.de
Numerous corks lie in a large bag. Photo.aussiedlerbote.de

Nabu - Popping the cork for nature conservation: the cork campaign results

If you pop the corks properly over the holidays, you can do something good for nature conservation. At least if the bottles are sealed with natural corks and not plastic or metal lids. The collected corks can be handed in at one of almost 1,500 collection points across Germany and processed into environmentally friendly insulating granulate in non-profit workshops, according to the Nabu Hamburg nature conservation association.

In this way, the appreciation of natural resources can be strengthened, especially in times of resource scarcity and the circular economy, said Nabu Hamburg Chairman Malte Siegert to the German Press Agency in Hamburg. "The cork campaign is a great project that shows that even small everyday things can make an effective contribution to environmental protection and nature conservation." Cork is a raw material and should not be thrown away. Corks are made from the bark of the cork oak.

The aim of the project is to collect and recycle as many of the approximately 200 million bottle corks that are produced in Germany every year as possible. According to Nabu, only around ten percent of corks have been recycled so far. The project has been running since 1994 and since then, more than 660 tons of corks have been collected - that's more than 160 million corks. In 2022 alone, almost 30 tons were collected.

The project also has a second benefit for nature: the non-profit workshops pay a little money for every cork collected, a contribution so to speak. And this is invested in crane conservation on the Elbe in the north and in the birds' wintering grounds in Spain. In this way, for example, the crane breeding grounds on the middle Elbe are preserved.

Information on Nabu's cork campaign Link to the search for cork collection points

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Source: www.stern.de

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