Brussels, 25 January 2017: Glass for Europe, the trade association of the flat glass sector, which manufactures energy saving technologies for the building, transport and solar-energy sectors, welcomes the adoption by the European Parliament’s ENVI Committee of its proposals to improve the Circular Economy Package. Glass for Europe considers that the reports rightly address longstanding bottlenecks in the recycling of building glass.

The vast majority of end-of-life building glass, used in windows and façades, is not properly sorted at source in Europe which renders its recycling in new glass products difficult. To increase the recycling rates of its products and manufacturing sustainability, Glass for Europe commissioned a study to Deloitte Sustainability on the present situation in the management and recycling of end-of-life building glass in Europe. Bertrand Cazes, Secretary General of Glass for Europe, comments: ‘This study provided many findings which helped us identifying the necessary conditions to render the recycling of building glass both environmentally and economically viable across Europe’s regions’.

Glass for Europe welcomes suggestions endorsed by the European Parliament’s ENVI Committee yesterday when they address the identified bottlenecks and create conditions for new recycling initiatives to emerge. For instance, Glass for Europe supports the incentive to generalise pre-demolition audits and the call on a harmonisation of the status of by-products. However, Glass for Europe regrets the lack of support for initiatives aiming at granting free access to container parks to professionals.

‘Although we do realise that there is no one-size-fits-all solution for the recycling of building glass in Europe, this report gives a signal to the construction and demolition, recycling and glass industries that concrete solutions need to be developed locally’, stresses Bertrand Cazes. In this respect, Glass for Europe welcomes the call for introducing recycling targets for construction and demolition waste, and that Member States are asked to develop measures to ensure sorting of building glass.

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About Glass for Europe

Glass for Europe is the trade association for Europe’s flat glass sector. Flat glass is the material that goes into a variety of end products, primarily in windows and facades for buildings, windscreens and windows for automotive and transport as well as solar energy equipment, furniture and appliances. Glass for Europe brings together multinational firms and thousands of SMEs across Europe, to represent the whole building glass value-chain. It is composed of flat glass manufacturers, AGC Glass Europe, Guardian, NSG-Group, Saint-Gobain Glass and Siseçam-Trakya Cam, and works in association with national partners gathering thousands of building glass processors and transformers all over Europe.