“This data confirms the clear positive trend over the past year, when, thanks to the collaboration of citizens, a number of EU countries have reached the ambitious 60% collection target fixed by the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive,” says Dominique Tombeur, President of FEVE – the EU association for container glass.

In countries like Austria, Denmark, Finland, Ireland and Spain efforts were made to further increase the already good results, while the Czech Republic and Slovakia saw a steady improvement in the Eastern Region where collection and recycling systems can still be enhanced.

In Belgium and Sweden close to 100 % of glass bottles and jars put on the market were collected, making the vision of a zero waste packaging material an ambitious objective which, to be realized, has to rely on the strong cooperation of all stakeholders starting from the citizens, the policy makers and the industry.

At EU level, taking the EU15 countries as a reference, national consumption increased by 8% over the past ten years while glass packaging waste destined to other uses and to landfill decreased by 26%.

Thanks to the proven and longstanding closed loop bottle-to-bottle recycling system, recycled glass stands out as a real renewable material. glass packaging is 100% and endlessly recyclable: it always comes back to life in a new bottle or jar without any loss of quality. This means that, when glass reaches its ‘end of life’, most glass bottles or jars go back to the production cycle as substitutes for raw materials in a unique “cradle-to-cradle” recycling loop.

“The results reached in glass collection for recycling prove that glass packaging is a fully sustainable resource” says Dominique Tombeur.  Unlike other materials a very high rate of collected glass is actually recycled in a new production cycle with an extremely positive impact on depletion of raw material savings, energy savings and emissions saving.”

Glass is best for environment
Recycling glass preserves natural resources: 1 tonne of recycled glass saves 1.2 tonnes of natural raw materials.  And recycling glass saves energy too: for every 10% of recycled glass added in the production cycle, about 3% of energy is saved.

Consumers know about the environmental benefits of glass.  When asked, 86% of consumers say they recycle their glass bottles and jars. If given the choice, a big majority of consumers (about 74%) state they would prefer glass packed products in almost all food and beverage categories. Made from some of the most abundant raw materials in nature – sand, soda ash and limestone – consumers also appreciate glass for its ability to preserve original taste and its impermeability, making it one of the safest and healthiest ways to store products with the least harmful impact on the environment.

The objective is to increase the uptake of mixed recycled glass, which is becoming more prevalent through commingled collections.

The research showed that, in most cases, using a container with 90% mixed-colour content would not, did not, have a detrimental effect on the purchase decision. Whilst this is a welcome addition to the work that is taking place to find a more sustainable application for glass that is collected through commingled channels – much of which  currently goes to road aggregate – there is obviously much discussion that still has to take place throughout the supply chain.

“Although we can colour separate good quality mixed glass collections from bottle banks and kerbside at our cullet treatment plants, we would draw particular attention to the likelihood of more pressure on the waste industry to reduce carbon, and that would require a return to colour separation within bottle banks or kerbside collection,” says Berryman’s general manager, Mick Keogh.

The report can be downloaded from www.wrap.org.uk

John Twitchen, Managing Director of Sauce Consultancy believes, ‘‘This issue is a sleeping giant, the industry needs to get ready for difficult questions about carbon footprinting. Of course, we recognise the difficulty in this but increasingly the public wants to know.”

The poll also looked at whether visitors felt that the media almost ruined the recycling industry with their biased reporting last year making residents feel that recycling was pointless.  Only 43% blamed the media whilst 57% felt the industry needed to ‘get a grip’ which perhaps reflects the industry’s own self-image.  Rosie Boycott picked up on this when presenting on ‘dispelling common myths’ at the Communications Hub on Thursday, commenting, “I think you have a really negative view of how you are doing.  I think you are doing really well, the recycling message is getting through.”

When asked whether the recession has sparked the potential for a wider long-term social change in general attitudes to our ‘throw-away culture’, 67% of those polled felt that people are taking a long hard look at what consumerism means and 33% felt that people are just going for the cheapest short-term decision.  In line with this, when asked if visitors found that inspiring behaviour change has become a greater challenge since the start of the recession, 66% said it’s even more important now than before and 34% said it’s further down the list for people.

130 visitors representing local authorities, the recycling and waste management industry and other interested parties took part in Sauce’s poll over the three days of Futuresource.