What to do with Corks? Trash/Compost/Recycle??

What do you do with your corks

  • Trash
  • Sort & Compost/Recycle
  • Other

0 voters

I would like some education/clarification on what we should do with corks afterwards. Natural/real corks, are from my understanding able to be composted. Both at the commercial level and at the backyard level (tho these will take a very long time to break down.)

What about those alternative closures like Diam/Vinc/etc. Are they compostable? Are they recyclables?

Cork with the Recycle symbol I suppose are recyclable … of course depending upon the whole what your trash vendor is able to recycle and wants to recycle.

I guess, what does everyone else do and how do you sort your corks, if you do, before you throw them in the trash.

Donate to a kids craft program. They are always looking for corks.

Both of the supermarkets where I shop have cork collection bins operated by sone sort of cork collection program. Not sure what they do with them. Grind them up for trivets or flooring? At any rate, that’s where my corks go. Makes me feel as if I am doing the right thing. Maybe they are grinding them up and turning them into land mines . . . .

1 Like

Corks will break down in compost, but it takes a very long time… remember, cork bark evolved to protect their trees.

I use them for grilling. Put the leftover coals in the chimney, add a handful of corks and top off with fresh hardwood charcoal. The corks act as an accelerant and cut the time it takes for the coals to be ready.

Dan Kravitz

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I save my corks & word gets out I have corks available, so I’ll get a call several times a year for some to be used in craft projects.
When I show up w/ a trashbag entirely full of corks, they usually blanche.
The latest requestor plans to use them to make a full-scale replica of the Titanic. Sure ain’t gonna sink when it hits that iceberg.
Tom

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We use them as starter fodder for fires in the winter. Champagne corks look very cool when they burn.

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This is what I do

33532973-F9A8-49C7-80AA-7934AE544067.jpeg
turned in my sister’s corks for recycling recently. Look closely and you’ll see she’s no berserker and why I’d never waste a great wine on her!

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Used to do that but after 2020 Covid most the places that took them no longer do.

I typically recycle. a restaurant by us has a program, but I have also done it through a couple of different websites. either way easy to get rid of small or large volumes of corks.

Sell them on Facebook Marketplace. I know it is not much but got $60 for 800 corks.

One could also build an impregnable, yet TCA contaminated, fortress.

6 Likes

I’ll bet my land mines could blow up your fortress.
Given my bad eyesight, tell me what wine your sister drinks.
I did once make a small bulletin board out of corks.
Maybe I will make a trivet next.

Although I certainly don’t have a compost pile as a condo dweller, I give my corks to acquaintances who own houses and are into composting.

Years ago, a local retailer was collecting corks as part of a promotion to find a cure for cancer, and I contributed many corks to them then. If anyone in my area is doing something similar, I’d be more than happy to give them my corks.

I hoard them. No plans for crafts or recycling, I just collect them. Like belly button lint.

I gave a bunch away a few years ago but it left me with an empty feeling.

Have a relative plan a wedding…16 years worth of corks stored in the garage….GONE! Bonus…they need empties too! [dance-clap.gif]

And how are the corks used a the wedding?

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I toss them. I’m a very bad man

We save our closures in a tall glass cylinder. But my wife insists on also saving screwcaps. She says it’s for the same reason we save corks. Just doesn’t seem right to me.

Get one of those giant wine glasses to display them in.