Closing the gap

Many cultures regard broken glass as a sign of good luck – and in terms of sustainability, that's certainly true. First and foremost, broken glass (or cullet) improves resource efficiency because glass is a natural material that is 100 percent recyclable. This means that glass can be formed into new bottles and jars an infinite number of times without any loss of quality, provided it is collected and recycled properly.

However, these conditions have only been met in fairly recent times. While archaeological findings show that used glass was already being utilised to manufacture new containers in the ancient world, the systematic, large-scale collection and recycling of glass did not begin until the second half of the 20th century. The GDR made the first advances here in the 1960s, followed by the Federal Republic of Germany, Austria and the Netherlands.

It started 50 years ago

In Switzerland, glass recycling took off in the 1970s – with Vetropack as the pioneer. Our company began setting up the first glass collection points in Swiss municipalities and founded Vetro-Recycling Ltd. to operate them. In 2009, this company merged with Vetropack and has since functioned as an independent division. But fifty years ago, the collection points operated in ways we would consider unconventional today: for example, a report published in the ‘Zürcher Unterländer’ newspaper at the beginning of 2023 states that in 1975, people in the Milchbuck district of Zurich simply left their collected glass in front of a grocery store until it was picked up several hours later and taken to the Saint-Prex and Bülach glassworks.

This development took place against the backdrop of the energy crisis, as European importers exerted increasing cost pressure. While supermarkets and discount stores engaged in a fierce price war and disposable packaging became ever more popular, Vetropack recognised the signs of the times early on. Long before government regulations and financial incentives were in place, Vetropack's nationwide collection scheme for used glass became a sustainable social and environmental project that served as a model for other countries.

Recycling saves energy and improves the environmental footprint

Glass recycling delivers many different benefits. In Europe alone, it saves several million tons of primary raw materials every year. Also, it takes less energy to melt down used glass than primary raw materials – a particularly important aspect at present. The higher the proportion of recycled glass, the greater the energy-saving effect will be. According to FEVE data, every ten percent of cullet added to the volume of a batch cuts energy consumption by around three percent and reduces the CO2 emissions by about five percent.

This also means that recycling of used glass has greatly improved the environmental footprint of glass production. Over the past 25 years, the European packaging glass industry has reduced industry-wide CO2 emissions and waste by 70 percent. Recycled products are also very popular with consumers, given that sustainability is an increasingly important factor in purchasing decisions. 

This makes it even more remarkable that by no means all waste glass is collected. To bring the collection and recycling rate for used glass up to 90 percent by 2030, FEVE has launched Close the Glass Loop, a multi-stakeholder platform that brings together all the players along the value chain. This initiative’s overall aims are to close the collection gap and increase the quality of recycled glass.

Recycling record set in 2021

In 2021, the average collection and recycling rate for glass packaging in the EU and the UK reached a new record of 80 percent – up one percentage point from the previous year. That is according to the latest data from the Close the Glass Loop campaign platform, which confirms progress toward the 90 percent target. The platform is pursuing a European action plan to address structural challenges in glass collection. As key objectives, it promotes a coordinated approach at European level and encourages information exchange on examples of best practices.

Pioneer and trendsetter

Vetropack supports the 90-percent target and continues to drive innovation ahead as a recycling pioneer and trendsetter. We have set ourselves the goal of achieving a 30-percent reduction in CO2 emissions per metric ton of glass produced by 2030 as compared to 2019 levels. “Our particular focus here is on continuously increasing the percentage of used glass in production,” according to Technical Performance Director Dubravko Stuhne. “The level is already as much as 80 percent in some of our plants. At the Nemšová site in Slovakia, the line for recycling broken glass was recently modified to increase the yield of used white glass.” White glass is particularly unforgiving towards the admixture of differently coloured glass, while green glass has the greatest tolerance in this regard. This modification has increased the line’s capacity by 50 percent; Vetropack expects the plant to save about 4,100 metric tons of original raw material and reduce CO2 emissions by 550 metric tons.

“What’s more, Vetropack invested EUR 12 million to modernise the recycling plant in the Czech Republic a few years ago, followed in 2022 by another EUR 4.5 million in Pöchlarn (Austria). With each of these measures, we are increasing the quantity and quality of recycled material in our glass products,” Stuhne points out. “To this end, the sorting speed and storage capacities have also been increased.”

Since the availability of cullet still poses a challenge at many locations, Vetropack supports all measures to increase collection rates, make the production process more resource-efficient in a true glass recycling economy, and ensure that high-quality cullet can be used reliably to produce new glass bottles.