In light of the upcoming Circular Economy Act (CEA), FEVE, the European Container Glass Federation, has published a position paper on glass packaging circularity and cullet uptake, highlighting the role of glass packaging as a permanent material and one of Europe’s best-performing circular packaging solutions. The position paper in a nutshell:
- Glass packaging is a proven circular material where circularity and decarbonisation go hand in hand
Glass packaging is a permanent material and one of Europe’s best-performing circular packaging solutions. Its intrinsic properties do not degrade through recycling, allowing glass to be recycled endlessly without loss of quality, and making it ideally suited to closed-loop systems.
As the European container glass industry works towards climate neutrality by 2050, maximising the use of high-quality cullet remains one of the most effective and immediately available levers to reduce energy use and CO₂ emissions. - Cullet uptake in context: what is happening today
Any mismatch between supply and demand of cullet must be seen in their proper context. These developments are not representative of the European market as a whole and should not be interpreted as a structural loss of demand for cullet at EU level.
From an industrial perspective, glass manufacturers not only remain structurally incentivised to maximise cullet use, for environmental, energy and economic reasons, but actively integrate recycled glass as key raw material in their production process. - What policy responses will – and will not – work
FEVE strongly reaffirms the relevance of ambitious glass collection targets, including the voluntary 90% collection objective by 2030 set by the Close the Glass Loop partnership.
FEVE also clearly opposes the introduction of mandatory recycled-content targets for glass packaging. Policy efforts should instead focus on strengthening separate collection, improving cullet quality, fostering stable and transparent cullet markets, and the use of fiscal measures (e.g. VAT, Tax credits) or eco-modulation of EPR fees to help internalise the environmental benefits of circular materials such as glass and reward real circularity in practice. - Competitiveness underpins circularity
Sustained demand for glass cullet depends on the competitiveness of the European container glass industry itself. Supporting a competitive, low-carbon container glass industry is therefore a prerequisite for maintaining strong cullet demand, reinforcing closed-loop recycling and delivering on Europe’s circularity and climate objectives.
FEVE remains fully committed to address glass recycling short-term challenges while working towards further strengthening long-term Europe’s resilient, low-carbon and circular glass packaging system.
To read the position paper, please click here.