Sainsbury said if the trial suceeds, PET bottles would be rolled out across more wines. This could lead to a wider departure from traditional glass bottles by wine makers.

The pilot, which begins next month and is supported by the government-funded Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP), uses bottles that look like tradional wine bottles, hold the same volume of liquid, and do not compromise the quality, according to Sainsbury.

WRAP is a private organisation that helps businesses to reduce waste, emissions and become more resource efficient.

A New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and an Australian Rosé are to be sold in bottles that weigh just an eighth of glass counterparts in all major stores for about three months initially.

Regular 75cl glass bottles weigh about 400 grams compared to those made from PET weighing 54 grams. Sainsbury has calculated that based on yearly sales of both bottles, 104 tonnes less of packaging would be used.

Although the wine is being shipped in bulk to the UK, where it is then bottled by Corby Bottlers, the fuel savings for domestic distribution could be significant both financially and environmentally.

The UK consumes around one billion bottles of wine every year, using around half a million tonnes of glass for the packaging. Reducing the weight of all glass wine bottles to the lightest available could reduce carbon emissions by around 90,000 tonnes, according to Wrap.

Moving wine bottles from glass to PET could significantly contribute to Sainsbury's new target of reducing CO2 emissions by 25 per cent by 2012, the supermarket said.

The bottles, supplied by Amcor are also let likely to break that glass and is therefore safer than glass, claims Sainbury.

Wrap is involved in the PET wine bottle trial and is supporting the assessment of consumer reaction to this initiative to understand how successfully the plastic bottles can be recycled, and to measure their environmental impact.

Earlier this year, the construction of the UK's first PET recycling plant was announced. The plant, located in Dagenham and operated by Closed Loop London (CLL), will convert used PET packaging from food, beverages and cosmetics into new food packages and save about 35,000 tonnes of waste ending up in landifill.