The Close the Glass Loop initiative has published its 2024 "Performance of Packaging Glass Recycling in Europe" report providing an overview of the processing of glass containers collected for recycling. It is derived from an online survey of 81 glass cullet recycling facilities in 20 European countries. Altogether, respondents processed the equivalent of 62 per cent of the container glass collected for recycling in the EU, Norway and the UK in 2022, according to the industry circularity initiative.
Of the 8.9 million tonnes entering the glass cullet recycling facilities represented in the survey, some 93 per cent was effectively recycled in 2022 and 85 per cent of the material underwent closed-loop glass recycling. Around 409,000 tonnes of inputs underwent open-loop glass recycling in applications such as glass wool manufacturing (3 per cent), glass foam manufacturing (2 per cent), construction materials (2 per cent), brick-making (1 per cent), and other uses accounting for less than one per cent each.
Some 3 per cent or 213,000 tonnes such as labels and closures were sent for recycling in another material stream (paper, metals, PET, etc). Some glass was not processed in the reporting year, and roughly equal amounts (just over 100,000 tonnes of material each) were used for landfill cover, were sent for disposal or energy recovery, or were unaccounted for. The responding recyclers reported a combined traceability of nearly 99 per cent.
In addition to the overall figures, the report contains an analysis of national glass inputs and regional overviews of material outputs. More than anything else, the analysis reveals how strongly cullet recycling facility inputs and outputs are shaped by the national structure of waste management systems.
For instance, while in most European countries the vast majority of glass inputs (80 per cent) stemmed from municipal waste collections, at the British cullet recycling facilities participating in the survey, glass from municipal waste collections made up just 30 per cent of inputs. Instead, there were significant direct inputs from the hotel, restaurant and catering (Horeca) sector (22 per cent) and from waste sorting facilities (30 per cent). Danish and Finnish glass recyclers were obtaining a substantial share of their inputs, 29 and 64 per cent respectively, from their deposit-return systems for single-use glass bottles.
Whether recyclers processed exclusively domestic waste glass or also processed imported material varied substantially from country to country. While on average, domestic inputs accounted for 89 per cent of the material processed at glass recycling facilities, plants in nine countries did not report processing any imported material at all. At the other end of the spectrum, Portuguese facilities reported that imported waste glass accounted for nearly 43 per cent of the processed material. In Croatia, the Czech Republic and Belgium, imports accounted for around a third and the share in Hungary and Slovakia was only slightly lower. In Austria, Germany and the Netherlands, imports accounted for between 13 and 17 per cent of inputs.
Similar structural differences could be observed on the output side. In Northern Europe including Germany and the UK, the share of inputs used in open-loop glass recycling was, while still small, much higher than in either Western, Eastern or Southern Europe. Likewise, the amount of non-glass materials sent for recycling amounted to nearly 5 per cent. In Eastern Europe those other materials represented a little more than 3 per cent, and they were substantially less in both Southern (Italy, Spain, Portugal) and Western (France, Netherlands, Belgium and Ireland) Europe. The share of input materials sent to landfill or energy recovery was far more consistent across the regions at between 1 and 1.5 per cent.
The vast majority of the 8.9 million tonnes of waste glass processed at the facilities responding to the survey was post-consumer glass from municipal waste (87 per cent). A further 8 per cent was post-consumer glass other than municipal waste and just 5 per cent pre-consumer or non-packaging glass.
Close the Glass Loop is an industry partnership platform that brings together glass manufacturers, glass processors, food and beverage producers, extended producer responsibility (EPR) schemes, and municipalities. The initiative aims to achieve a "collection for recycling" rate of 90 per cent in the EU by 2030. The initiative was launched in 2020 and is supported by both the European glass recyclers association Ferver and the European Container Glass Federation FEVE.
