Whole Foods Encourages Cork Recycling
Posted on April 17, 2010
Whole Foods has partnered with Cork ReHarvest to make it easier for people to recycle corks. Whole Foods has Cork ReHarvest boxes in all of its 292 stores in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. Whole Foods says cork recycling helps to reduce demand placed on cork plantations while maintaining the Mediterranean forest ecosystem.
Whole Foods also shared the following Mediterranean cork forest facts and figures:
- Approximately 6.6 million acres of Mediterranean cork forest extend across Portugal, Spain, Algeria, Morocco, Italy, Tunisia and France.
- Oak forests support one of the world's highest levels of forest biodiversity.
- Natural cork extraction is one of the most environmentally friendly harvesting methods in the world. Not a single tree is cut down in the process. Instead, renewable bark is stripped by hand every 9-12 years and cork oaks can live up to 300 years.
- Cork oak trees store carbon in order to regenerate their bark, and a harvested cork oak tree absorbs up to five times more [carbon dioxide] than one that isn't harvested.
- Additionally, no bark is wasted during the cork production process, and the residue is granulated to make other cork products and even cork dust is used for fuel.
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