New Glass Recycling Targets

“This is a powerful statement by the glass industry about its intent to work with other stakeholders to improve cradle-to-cradle recycling​,” said Rich Crawford, GPI board chairman and president of Global Glass Operations. “Like glass itself, this recycling goal is good for consumers and families as well as the environment​.”

The energy benefits from using 50 per cent recycled content in all glass packages manufactured in the US could save enough energy to power more than 45,000 households for a year, estimates GPI.

Environmental Protection Agency​

Last year glass recycling rates reached 28.1 per cent compared with 25.3 per cent in 2006, according the to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). That means an estimated 3.2m tons were recovered; up 0.3m tons on 2006, says the institute.

GPI also promised to step up its support of legislative and regulatory measures designed to boost recycling rates:

“The industry has actively supported efforts to improve single stream curbside best practices that maintain glass containers as a viable commodity grade product suitable for bottle-to-bottle recycling,​” according to a GPI statement.

“Glass container manufacturers will continue to work with policy-makers to improve and expand state beverage deposit programmes”, ​it added. ​

Improved recycling​

Mark Murray, executive director of Californians Against Waste welcomed GPI’s initiative. “The glass container industry has been a leading advocate of improved recycling in ​California​. We applaud ​GPI​ for setting an ambitious goal to take comprehensive, pro-active stops to achieve a high recovery rate nationally​.”