Register for Close the Glass Loop Annual event | In-person | Advancing the Circular Economy for Glass Packaging

Europe has built the world's most advanced glass packaging collection & recycling systems. High collection rates, well-established cullet treatment infrastructure and extensive recycling capacity have enabled a genuine closed-loop model for glass packaging across Europe. This performance has positioned glass packaging as a flagship example of circularity at industrial scale.

However, the current economic environment — characterised by persistently high energy costs, subdued consumer demand, carbon price exposure and intensifying global competition — demonstrates that this model cannot be taken for granted. At the same time, the European Union is advancing an ambitious regulatory agenda that reshapes the framework conditions for manufacturing and recycling.

This session aims to explore under what conditions Europe can maintain industrial-scale circularity for glass packaging in this context, with circularity at scale depending on the interaction between:

• Stable and high-performing collection systems
• Well-designed and efficiently governed EPR schemes
• Economically competitive secondary raw materials
• Efficient and innovative cullet treatment infrastructure
• Competitive glass manufacturing capacity
• Predictable regulatory and investment frameworks

Maintaining this equilibrium is essential to ensure that circular ambition, industrial competitiveness and decarbonisation objectives reinforce one another.

Several EU policy developments make this discussion particularly timely:

• The EU competitiveness agenda and follow-up to the Clean Industrial Deal
• The forthcoming Circular Economy Act (CEA)
• The implementation phase of the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR)