SpiritsEurope and Eurocities join glass recycling initiative

Eurocities, a network of governing bodies representing major European cities, and SpiritsEurope have joined ‘Close the Glass Loop’, an industry recycling initiative for glass packaging.

Close the Glass Loop aims to unite the glass collection and recycling value chain and to achieve more bottle-to-bottle recycling through the establishment of a material stewardship programme.

The multi-stakeholder initiative, which was founded by the European Container Glass Federation, FEVE, already has participation from major organisations, including: FERVER; EXPRA; Municipal Waste Europe; and UNESDA Soft Drinks Europe, which joined earlier this year.

In signing up, SpiritsEurope, an EU-level trade association for the spirits sector, will cooperate with national glass value chains to improve the collection and recycling of glass packaging. 

Eurocities, which is joining as a ‘founding partner’, will work with Close the Glass Loop to accelerate progress towards a circular economy, through introducing more effective glass collection systems in urban areas.

As such, these latest partnerships support the initiative’s target of achieving a 90% average EU collection rate of used glass packaging.

“The collaboration with SpiritsEurope will strengthen our Circular Economy model with significant sustainability benefits, as increasing recycling rates has also the effect of reducing CO2 emissions and energy consumption as well as diverting waste from landfill,” said FEVE secretary general Adeline Farrelly.

On the partnership with Eurocities, Farrelly added: “Cities face unique challenges when it comes to glass collection and the choices made can have profound impacts on the quantity and quality of post-consumer glass that can be recycled. Much is already done for glass but there is also a big potential for improvement.

“We are really happy to welcome Eurocities amongst the founding members and look forward to working together on separate collection systems for glass and to address cities’ unique glass recycling challenges.”