November 14, 2011  - Can you imagine the romantic dinner, candlelight, the music playing softly and the fine wine flowing from a bottle made of paper?

Whoa, is there something wrong with this picture?  Apparently not. edie newswire reports the British company behind the first paper milk bottle, Green Bottle, has developed a prototype paper bottle for wine and is currently in talks with supermarkets and wine producers.

The company, based in Woodbridge in Suffolk, hopes to make the paper bottle available to the public as early as next year.

According to Green Bottle replacing glass with compostable paper will reduce the drinks carbon footprint by 10% and cut waste.

The company recently celebrated a landmark by selling a 100,000 paper milk bottles, which are currently on trial in Asda stores in the south west.

Inventor Martin Myerscough (pictured above)  is behind the new product, he said: "The best thing about Green Bottle is that consumers just 'get it'. "We've found that if you offer them the choice of a paper bottle or a plastic one they'll choose paper every time."

Plastic milk bottles are one of the main contributors to this because of the volume of bottles (around 9bn in the UK alone annually) and also because of the size of the bottles. People leave the tops on, so the bottles cannot be crushed at Landfill.

"Choosing milk in Green Bottles enables consumers to 'do their bit' for the environment every day - and our sales show that ever-greater numbers of consumers are doing this.

"We're hopeful that the success we've had with Green Bottle in milk can be repeated with wine. It would mean an end to those morning-after trips to the bottle bank.

"All you would need to do is rip out the plastic lining and put the paper outer-casing in the bin or on the compost heap," he added.

"We've had a lot of interest from supermarkets and wine producers so we could see the wine Green Bottle on shelves as early as next year," said Myerscough.