Glass packaging companies, after the rapid growth after Covid, are encountering enormous difficulties

The glass is a fundamental raw material in the field of food, medical, and industrial packaging but, at the same time, it is of great importance in other sectors, starting with construction, furniture, automotive and art.

Although the Covid period slowed down flat glass producers, packaging producers, especially companies that produced bottles and jars, continued to work serving the sector food and pharmaceutical.

After the periods of restriction and the distribution of consumption, all sectors had seen a strong recovery in national consumption and exports, with positive results, 2022 out of 2021, even in double digits in some countries (+ 10.4% USA, + 9.3% Germany, + 7.2% Spain).

The war between Russia and Ukraine has unleashed an unbridled race for the price of gas, in an absolutely energy-intensive sector, which has seen its energy bills rise to unsustainable levels.

Furthermore, the upward dynamics of the gas price is not the only problem that glassworks have to look at, as even the procurement of gas itself for the 2023 could be complicated, given the almost total reduction in Russian gas supplies.

A hand could give it a greater use of cullet which, from a production point of view, according to Coreve data, reduces gas consumption by about 30%.

In fact, to produce glass through the scrap it is sufficient to heat the furnace to the melting point of the material, while producing glass from virgin raw materials it is necessary to dose different components, like silica sand, which need a lot more energy to mix.

But even in the recycling sector, despite being one of the most virtuous, there is a lack of raw material second to the needs, knowing that waste is present in the market.

Here, dynamics that cannot be managed by glass factories come into play, concerning the percentages of glass recycling by country and by geographical area, where we find excellences that exceed 70% of collection and areas where it does not reach 50%, with a huge loss of product and a greater environmental impact.

Considering that the use of scrap in the production of new glass has a lower environmental impact than the use of virgin raw materials, thus allowing gas savings in production, I believe it is necessary to focus attention on improving separate waste collection in order to increase the secondary raw material available.

In addition, the flourishing production of bottles and jars for sauces, wine, jam, oil and many other food products that Italy exports , do not allow the recovery of used glass, therefore, it becomes essential to improve collection in those sectors where we are most lacking.

As far as artistic glass is concerned, we can say that Italian excellences are normally made up of artisans who constitute small entrepreneurial realities, with small productions of great value.

The limited company size leads to a very high energy weight of gas bills compared to turnover, putting the very existence of some companies in crisis.

Murano, the historic Italian island, famous all over the world for its artistic creations in glass, is in great difficulty in keeping the ovens on 24 hours a day due to of expensive gas, despite the Veneto region providing refreshments to offset, at least in part, the fluctuation in bills.

Automatic translation. We apologize for any inaccuracies. Original article in Italian.