Environment & energy

Glass is 100 percent recyclable and, as a result, it makes a significant contribution to protecting the environment. That's because glass is manufactured on a cradle to cradle basis. Waste glass is the most important raw material for making new glass packaging. On average, around 60 percent of every bottle consists of "old" glass and in some coloured bottles, it can be 90 percent. Glass can also be melted down an infinite number of times to create new, high quality glass packaging without any impairment of quality. Very few other packagings are infinitely recyclable. In order to recycle glass, you have to have a sophisticated collection and returns system for used glass containers. There are over 300,000 used glass container collection points in Germany which are used by 97 percent of all German households. They enable every citizen to make an active contribution to saving raw materials, energy and landfill space, and to sustaining the recycling system.

Waste glass pieces or cullet as they are known aren't just used by the container glass industry, but also in the other glass manufacturing sectors by sheet glass and special glass producers. These manufacturers mainly use waste glass from their own products and specially recycled, high-quality waste glass. Around 20 percent of flat glass consists of waste glass, and as much as 40 percent waste glass is contained in tableware glass. Special glass can only be produced with low quantities of cullet because it usually has to meet strict quality requirements. The glass industry also recycles filter dust and furnace construction material materials (refractory block), thereby making a further contribution to resource conservation.

The use of cullet or glass shards doesn't just conserve natural resources, it also reduces energy consumption. Every 10 percent of cullet used in a batch reduces melting energy by 3 percent. This is a very strong economic and ecological argument in favour of glass when you bear the continuously increasing costs of electricity, gas and heating oil in mind.

Every year, around 2 million tons of waste glass are collected and processed into new glass packaging in Germany. The country also has an excellent recycling rate. In 2006, 83.6 percent of glass packaging sold in Germany was recycled, and every citizen took around 24 kilograms of waste glass to the collection points.