Wine Cork Upcycled

The message of the project

“Wine Cork Upcycled” bases their creative idea on complex systems theory concepts, understanding that all life is about interactions and connectivity, and that everything in nature is cyclical and circular, and that everything recycles.

The idea behind the project

The partners in this project provide expertise in making upcycled items from repurposed materials, as well as market experience in Romania and Portugal.

Every year, the equivalent of more than 31 billion bottles of wine are consumed throughout the world. Too many corks used as stoppers in these bottles are discarded and end up in landfills.

Cork stoppers are an environmentally friendly, recyclable, and reusable product. In order to make use of and conserve this precious resource, an increasing number of nations have implemented recycling campaigns in order to promote awareness of the material's value among local communities.

Their goal is to raise awareness of the necessity of a circular economy and regenerative practices in the battle against climate change by promoting the concepts of recycled art and upcycling. They want to leverage this resource to create one-of-a-kind and imaginative new handcrafted goods out of recycled wine corks.

While cork is extensively used in a variety of sectors, the upcycling of used wine corks has yet to be fully realised. “Wine Cork Upcycled” believes that there are several new things that can be created from wine corks, both in terms of use and aesthetics and local identity.

The project concept is to upcycle old wine corks into distinctive and imaginative new branded goods. In an exciting new approach, they will extract colours from organic sources and utilise those pigments to colour their used corks hand-made items, in addition to upcycling the wine corks.

“Wine Cork Upcycled” will develop and construct new inventive hand-made items, personalised for each customer, with a unique design and aesthetics to suit the organisation/local identity, using locally recycled wine corks. Individual wineries, wine regions, wine stores, wine festivals, and any business or organisation associated with the wine or cork sector are their target clients.

What next?

“Wine Cork Upcycled” has already prototyped several products made from wine corks, such as wall watches and advertising boards for wine companies, and they are currently prototyping new products, such as birdhouses intended to be placed in organic vineyards, where the birds act as pest controllers, or foldable wine presentation panels, with wine and glasses holders and an attached map of the wine region.

The project intends to grow their concept in both Portugal and Romania, building a brand identity and a marketing campaign for the items with the assistance of WORTH. Two nations in Europe with a strong wine legacy, and through the design and development of wine cork related hand-made items, we will build a bridge between those two cultures, one on the Western and one on the Eastern borders of the EU.