Glass, the environmentally friendly packaging

Health, integrity of taste and environmental protection. These are the three concepts driving  glass. A reusable and recyclable material, completely free of safety risks. Also a protagonist of continuous growth, serving  Made in Italy valuable food industry. A rosy picture, indeed ‘green’, but improvable. Starting from collection and recycling, at the top of the so-called ‘waste hierarchy’, as emerged in the roundtable organized by Assovetro in Rome, on 12.2.19.

Glass, production increasing

Glass bottle production, in the first 10 months of 2018, grew by 3.2%. Doubling the growth trend of the last 30 years (+1.5% average), reaching over 3 million tons. Many but insufficient to meet demand. The shortage of raw materials in 2017 contributed to the increase of bottle imports in 2018 (+25%, almost 519 thousand tons).

Wine, of which Italy remains the world’s top producer, drives demand. Thanks especially to sparkling wines. The export of sparkling wines, between 2001 and 2017, recorded a jump of 566.2% in value (264.8% in quantity). Of the 700 million sparkling wine bottles produced, 64% (450 million) are exported abroad. Exports also increase for empty bottles (+7%), thanks to  design Italian design appreciated worldwide, especially in Southeast Asia.

Glass, risk-free packaging

The  performance of jars (intended as food jars) is less sparkling. Production totals just over 230 thousand tons (+0.2%), with an export decline (-11%) partly due to the shortage of white glass (i.e., colorless). However, glass remains the best food packaging for some simple reasons:

– food safety, thanks to the absence of migration into food and beverages (which instead characterize plastics and some metals),

– quality of foods, best preserved in their authentic organoleptic properties, (1)

– enhancement of the content, thanks to the inimitable and permanent transparency.

The superiority of glass as food packaging has been demonstrated on several occasions. It is more effective in preserving vitamins in tomatoes, compared to cans and multilayer materials. And better preserves the qualities of wine, compared to the ‘bag-in-box'.

As for food safety, glass shines. ‘The consumption of glass packaging is increasing because consumers are increasingly aware that the use of plastics involves the risk of releasing harmful substances into food, such as phthalates and bisphenol A‘, emphasizes Marco Ravasi, president of hollow glass producers at Assovetro. Highlighting the risks of other materials, long underestimated despite the well-known impact on the nervous, reproductive, and endocrine systems.

Glass, champion of the circular economy

The environmental virtues of glass are recalled by Edo Ronchi, father of the waste management and recycling regulation in Italy (the ‘Ronchi decree’, precisely, 1997) as well as president of the Sustainable Development Foundation. (2) ‘It is a durable, reusable, recyclable material. Unlike plastic – which when recycled does not reproduce new containers, which require virgin polymers – glass cullet allows the reproduction of new glass packaging with the same characteristics as those made with virgin raw materials‘.

The Italian glass industry absorbs all the glass waste collected in the country and reuses it to produce new packaging. (3) All this for unlimited cycles, without loss of material and with an energy amount 4-6 times lower than that required for production from virgin raw materials. An exemplary material in the circular economy, as well as useful:

– to counteract the effects of climate change,

– to reduce waste in the seas, where plastic packaging is still the main culprit,

– to mitigate the risks of microplastic pollution, which also contaminate wastewater destined for agriculture (as emerged from a recent study in Lombardy), as well as in food.

Glass collection, still too much waste

Recycling concerns 73%  of packaging placed on the market (2017, +2% compared to 2016). More can be done, but greater commitment is needed. ‘To really recycle everything, the quality of collection must be improved’, explains Franco Grisan, president of CoReVe, the national consortium for the collection and recycling of glass.

6% of glass scrap today collected throughout Italy is destined for waste. Due to over two and a half million tons of materials foreign to glass and incompatible with the recycling process – because they contain lead, not allowed in glass (except for residual quantities) – such as ceramics and crystals. In 2017, the waste share increased worryingly (+41% compared to 2016), with a negative impact on industrial processes. The identification (by optical readers) and removal of waste containing lead slows down the process and increases itscosts. With an additional cost for the environment, since such materials must be disposed of in landfills as waste.

Collection and recycling, how to improve

Improve The quality and quantity of collected and recycled glass is possible and indeed necessary to improve, but targeted interventions are needed. The round table organized by Assovetro highlighted a series of priorities.

– More separate collectionIn some areas of Italy, the separate collection of glass reaches 80% of the material introduced for consumption, while in others it is stuck at 30%. Local administrations must be held accountable. The video made by students of a school in Termini Imerese, as part of an initiative promoted by Assovetro, is eloquent, where interviewees declare sensitivity to the recycling issue but complain about the lack of response from the city administration.

– Less wasteForeign materials severely hinder recycling, with an estimated cost of 200 euros per ton. They also create a disposal problem, although not as serious as that concerning plastic packaging. Waste continues to grow in proportion to collection (from 177 to 250 tons, 2016-2017). This trend must be reversed by educating the population on proper waste disposal.

– More glass scrap treatment plantsMore plants are needed. Increasing the capacity of the plants can improve the trade balance of glass packaging, promoting economy and employment in a growing sector. It is necessary to increase downstream production capacity, as the plants are saturated (and indeed three new furnaces are on their way). But also upstream, as the creation of scrap sorting platforms near collection points is urgent. The glass collected still travels too far to be transported to the glassworks located in the areasindustrial areas of large packaging users.

– Simplify the delivery of collected glass.  Organizing Municipalities (and their collection entities) into consortia simplifies the management of scrap. Complaints arise about initiatives that complicate these processes, such as a law from the Puglia Region that obliges CoReVe to manage relationships with individual Municipalities rather than with a few consortia representing them.

– Regulatory interventions. Legislation is stumbling, slowed by disputes over central and regional competences. And it is unable to meet the urgency of  End of Waste, to upgrade the ‘waste’ into secondary raw material (SRM). Italy and the EU have not issued implementing measures and at least 6 decrees are stalled at the Ministry of the Environment. Facilities are ready to process waste to transform it into SRM but are blocked by regulatory standstill. This causes huge waste of diapers, tires, material collected by street sweeping (sand and gravel), biogas (to be connected to the grid after carbon dioxide recovery).

Marta Strinati

Notes

(1) With the care to use glass of variable color intensity, in relation to foods susceptible to oxidation (e.g., extra virgin olive oils)

(2) Edo Ronchi, multiple times Minister of the Environment

(3) The Italian glass container industry has 18 glassworks with 40 plants, 55% in the North. Revenue amounts to 2 billion euros and employees are 8,300, 97% permanent contracts, also due to the complexity of the process, which rewards experience. Source: Assovetro