20 April 2020

The European glass packaging industry welcomes Eurocities as new founding partner of the ‘Close the Glass Loop’ platform

Eurocities and Close the Glass Loop will work together to improve post-consumer glass packaging collection and recycling in the urban area.

Brussels, 20 April 2020 –

Eurocities – representing governing bodies of over 140 of Europe’s largest cities and over 45 partner cities at European level – today joins ‘Close the Glass Loop’ – the multistakeholder circular economy partnership for glass packaging. Close the Glass Loop is currently composed of FEVE, FERVER, EXPRA, UNESDA and Municipal Waste Europe. Eurocities and Close the Glass Loop will work together to improve post-consumer glass packaging collection and recycling in the urban areas.

“With more than 70% of European people now living in urban areas, city authorities play a key role in the collection of used glass to be recycled back into new glass packaging,” comments Anna Lisa Boni, Secretary General of Eurocities. “Our ambition is to transform cities into authentic Circular Economies and the endless recycling assets of glass packaging can help. Close the Glass Loop objectives perfectly chime with the European Green Deal objectives that we are strongly engaged in, and where the transition toward a EU circular economy, thanks to the Circular Economy Action Plan, is one of the flagship initiatives.”

Besides investing in high quality and resource-efficient separate collection and public waste management systems, Eurocities also aim at engaging with all stakeholders on the development of holistic policies and measures within a city and in the network with the other cities as well as at empowering citizens to play an active role in this transition.

“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,” states Adeline Farrelly, FEVE Secretary General. “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”.

Today more than ever, everyone in society is being asked to take environmental responsibility which amongst others means collecting, recycling and reusing packaging. This is also being shaped thanks to recently launched instruments by the European Commission like the EU Circular Economy Action Plan and the reviews of the Waste Framework and Packaging Directives.

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About Eurocities

EUROCITIES is the network of major European cities. It brings together the local governments of over 140 of Europe’s largest cities and over 45 partner cities, that between them govern 130 million citizens across 39 countries. EUROCITIES’ objective is to reinforce the important role that local governments should play in a multilevel governance structure. EUROCITIES aims to shape the opinions of Brussels stakeholders and ultimately shift the focus of EU legislation in a way which allows city governments to tackle strategic challenges at local level.

About FEVE

FEVE is the Federation of European manufacturers of glass containers for food and beverage and flacons for perfumery, cosmetics and pharmacy markets. Its members produce over 80 billion glass containers per year. The association has some 60 corporate members belonging to approximately 20 independent corporate groups. Their 150 manufacturing plants are located across 23 European States and maintain 125.000 direct and indirect jobs along the total supply chain. See more at www.feve.org.