Today, December 10th, kicks off the Glass Packaging Institute’s first-ever Recycle Glass Day. To mark the day, GPI and its member companies will host a variety of activities across the U.S. designed to boost consumer recycling of glass bottles and jars. Read about a few of them:

• GPI announces winner of glass recycling YouTube video competition
• Glass industry announces 50% recycled content goal
• GPI releases recycling poll

“We hope this awareness event will result in higher levels of glass collected for recycling and create positive attitudes about recycling overall,” says Joe Cattaneo, GPI President. “Recycling is an integral part of the cradle-to-cradle process of glass packaging manufacturing. Every time a consumer recycles a glass jar or bottle, they help to save energy and our environment.”

Join with us in celebrating Recycle Glass Day. Make glass recycling a family activity or a part of your New Year's Resolution. Use GPI’s Carbon Calculator to find out how much energy you can save recycling your glass containers.

MSU Students Win National Glass Recycling Video Competition
Competition Kicks-off Recycle Glass Day

GPI is pleased to announce that Jonathon Beach, Stephen Gizicki, Joshua Lobert, and Adam Simon—all packaging majors in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at Michigan State University—have won the first-ever Recycle Glass Day YouTube Video Competition. Their winning video features stop-motion technology and the tagline, “Glass can’t recycle itself.” Watch the video.

“We wanted to emphasize the fact that glass can’t recycle itself,” says Lobert. “It takes other people to actually do their part to make the world better. Glass is a reusable material, so it’s important to recycle it.” GPI will launch the winning video as a Public Service Announcement today, Recycle Glass Day.

“This video really reinforces the message that each of us must do our part to make recycling happen,” says Dr. Susan Selke, Acting Director, MSU School of Packaging. “Glass is truly 100% recyclable, but only if it is delivered into a system that allows recycling to occur.”

Over 80 packaging sciences students from six universities—Cal Poly, Clemson University, Michigan State University, Rochester Institute of Technology, San Jose State University, and Stout University of Wisconsin—created videos to help build national awareness about the benefits of glass container recycling. More

GPI Members Set Goal to Use 50% or Higher Recycled Content for Glass Containers by 2013
Goal will continue to improve Cradle-to-Cradle Footprint of Glass

The glass container industry, its companies, and thousands of employees, recognize the growing importance of protecting the environment and conserving valuable energy resources. In recognition of the environmental value of post-consumer cullet, or recycled glass, member companies of the GPI have agreed to the goal of using at least 50% recycled glass in the manufacture of new glass bottles and jars by 2013.

New U.S. EPA data shows the glass recycling rate has already jumped to 28.1% in 2007, up three percentage points from 2006 (25.3%). An estimated 3.2 million tons were recovered compared to 2.9 million in 2006. Using the EPA’s benefits calculator, GPI estimates energy savings from using 50% recycled content in all glass packages manufactured in the U.S. could save enough energy to power over 45,000 households for a year.

“This is certainly a powerful statement by the glass industry about its intent to work with other stakeholders to improve cradle-to-cradle recycling,” said Rich Crawford, GPI’s Board Chairman, and President of Global Glass Operations, O-I. “Like glass itself, this recycling goal is good for consumers and families as well as the environment.” More

GPI Welcomes New Members and Reelects Chairman of the Board
GPI Now Represents 95% of U.S. Glass Container Suppliers

GPI recently welcomed four new members to the association—Brian Bussell, president & CEO of Anchor Glass Container Corporation; William Kelman, president of Kelman Bottles, LLC; Scott Cameron, vice president of marketing for Cameron Family Glass Packaging, LLC; and Peter Leone, CEO of Leone Industries.

The Institute also reelected L. Richard Crawford, President of Global Glass Operations at Owens Illinois, Inc. as the glass container association’s Chairman of the Board of Trustees for another one-year term.

“The trends for pure and sustainable packaging have reenergized our industry, and we are excited to join forces with our new members to further promote glass as the package of choice for consumers and the environment,” said Joseph Cattaneo, president of GPI. “We’re happy to also report that 95% of U.S. glass container manufacturers and suppliers are now members of GPI.” More

PACKAGING TRENDS

Seven in 10 Americans Plan to Recycle this Holiday Season
Poll findings help kick-off Recycle Glass Day

According to a new poll released by GPI and Opinion Research, a majority of Americans (71%) plan to recycle following holiday parties, gatherings, or meals this year, and one-in-four (27%) plan to make a New Year’s resolution this year to recycle more.

“We’re excited about the response to our first-ever Recycle Glass Day and people’s commitments to recycle more in 2009,” said Joseph Cattaneo, GPI President. “Recycling your glass bottles and jars saves energy and the environment as glass is 100% recyclable in a closed-loop system.”

The survey of 1,005 respondents was conducted November 20-23 by Opinion Research for GPI in conjunction with Recycle Glass Day. It has a margin of error of +/- 3%. More

A Look Inside: Glass Dharma

GPI talked recently with David Leonhardt, Founder and Owner of Glass Dharma, a company that manufacturers environmentally friendly, reusable glass straws. “My ultimate goal is to provide glass drinking straws to 2% of the population of this country,” says Leondhardt. “That’s about 6 million straws. It’s a pretty heavy mission, but I’m working at it day by day.” Listen to the podcast or Read a transcript

LEGISLATION

Michigan Container Deposit Fraud Legislation Passes House

The Michigan House of Representatives has passed a package of related bills that would require special markings on deposit bottles sold in the state.  It would mandate that stores retrofit their bottle and can return machines to read the markings and reject empties brought from other states.

Proponents say beverage distributors and the state are losing millions of dollars due to fraudulent returns on beer and soft drink containers for which they paid no deposit. These customers have figured out that the machines, used by larger Michigan stores, can't discern between no-deposit out-of-state containers and 10-cent-deposit Michigan bottles and cans.

According to proponents, the legislation would provide state funds to repay stores for modifying their equipment. It wouldn't penalize store owners who couldn't obtain the necessary equipment, or for whom state reimbursement wasn't available.

Blacksburg, VA Study Group Recommends Mandatory Business Recycling

The Blacksburg City Council is set to vote the week of December 8th on a resolution that supports an earlier recommendation from an ad-hoc environmental organization.  The “Downtown Recycle Study Group” recommended to council members that they create a mandatory, “pay as you throw” recycling systems for businesses located in the downtown area.

Currently, downtown businesses are not required to recycle.  Under the proposal, businesses would be billed from the hauler for only the amount of recyclables it sets out for pick-up.  The Study Group has also requested that the City Council establish permanent drop-off sites across the town, as well as provide options for recycling of food scraps.  Blacksburg Mayor Ron Rordam has indicated his desire to see these recommendations approved by the council.

GLASS RECYCLING

Northern CO Glass Recycling Drop-Off Program Expands

Loveland, Fort Collins, and Larimer County glass recycling drop-off program, which began just a few months ago, is already planning to expand.  
 
The communities have announced the addition of two new glass collection drop-off sites, bringing the total to five.  Community education about the initiative has also stepped up through a “Be World Class, Sort Your Glass” campaign.  
 
According to Tony Abel, Rocky Mountain Bottling Plant in Wheatridge, CO, which receives the recycled glass and partners in the project, they are seeing about 10-15 tons a month of high-quality cullet.  “We really appreciate their understanding of the need for contaminant free cullet, and that’s what we’re getting,” says Abel.  
 
With the expansion to five drop-off sites, Abel expects tonnage to increase to about 25-30 tons a month. To compare, the first six months of 2008, the City of Fort Collins alone collected just 25 tons of glass.

U.S. EPA Region 10 Responds to Contamination in Single Stream Recycling

U.S. EPA Region 10 (Pacific Northwest) has released deliverables and “next steps” from their year long initiative to develop regional solutions to the growing problem of contamination in commingled, or single stream, recycling systems. Deliverables include common terminology, collection guidelines, processing goals, evaluation protocol, and marketing tools.

The Contamination in Commingled Recycling Systems Standards & Guidelines Initiative convened stakeholders, including the Glass Packaging Institute, throughout the past year to develop guidelines that will reduce cross-contamination of recycled materials, increase the quality and quantity of materials recycled, and capture the highest percentage of materials that are intended to be recycled.

The initiative was the result of Washington Beverage Container dialogues to address how to increase beverage container recycling in Washington State. Learn more and download deliverables

Hawaii’s HI-5 Redemption Program Boosts Recycled Glass Shipped to Mainland

More than 1,000 tons of redeemable glass containers have been shipped out of Maui to be made in to new glass bottles since the state imposed a new standard for handling bottles in its HI-5 redemption program.

Recycling companies are still handling glass beverage containers, and paying consumers the 5-cent redemption value for each container. In turn, the state is paying the businesses 4 cents for each glass container shipped to a Mainland processor. This has boosted local efforts to recycle glass. Read the article

1000 WORDS

Saint-Gobain Releases Animated Video for Recycle Glass Day.
It’s “Gobs” of fun.

“The Adventures of Captain Cullet and the little Gob o’ Glass,” created by Saint-Gobain Containers, Inc., features the adventures of two characters attempting to help better the earth and environment by recycling glass. Watch the video

Copyright © 2008 Glass Packaging Institute 

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