Reinforced glass

15 October 2010


In the lead up to the upcoming European policy on recycling, FEVE (The European Container Glass Federation) has reinforced the glass packaging industry’s record on environmental sustainability.

During a web conference, Member of the European Parliament, Kathleen van Brempt stressed the importance for the industry to think and act sustainably: “Cradle to Cradle is our future. Not out of ideology, but out of necessity. The glass industry is in a strong starting position when it comes to recycling. The Belgian experience with glass recycling shows that there is no reason why 'closing the loop' of the glass production cycle should not be possible on the EU-level.”

European FEVE president Niall Wall added: “Glass can be recycled without loss of quality over and over again. Recycling is not the same as downcycling [which is] clearly not as good as having a material which maintains its properties and quality infinitely.”

He continued: “The glass container industry makes a valuable contribution to sustainability. A multi-use returnable bottle for example may be used over 40 times reducing its CO2 impact significantly, and the energy saved by recycling a single bottle could power a computer for 25 minutes.”

According to FEVE Technical Director Fabrice Rivet, the FEVE Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) showed that around 30% less energy is required to melt cullet in the furnace compared to virgin raw materials. So for every tonne of cullet used to produce a tonne of glass, 1.2 tonnes of raw materials are saved and nearly 0.7 tonnes of CO2 can be avoided.

The data is available on the FEVE website.




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