Recycling in Container Glass Production: Present Problems in European Glass Industry

The container glass industry (in Europe) shows the highest recycling levels within the packaging industry. Glass recycling leads to 0.25–0.30 % glass furnace energy savings for each percent of batch replaced by cullet. Experiences and observations after more than 30 years of intensive glass recycling in Western Europe are discussed in this paper. These experiences have lead to detailed specifications or requirements for the waste glass quality to be recycled in container glass furnaces. Today, cullet is the most important raw material in our sector. The presence of metals (ferro and non-ferro), paper, plastics, organic substances, ceramics, stones and glass ceramics is critical and can lead to melting problems, interruption of the forming process or unacceptable glass quality. Important is the identification of glass faults, originating from cullet, and the improvement of waste glass separation and sorting methods, which can be applied on large scale. Today, most problems occur with glass ceramic contamination in the cullet and variation in the so-called oxidation state of the cullet.