What types of glass packaging are there?
Glass is widely used for packaging and storage of both food and beverages. Glass packaging is leakproof, airtight and transparent. This allows to protects the products from various external factors, such as bacteria.
The following glass packaging is part of the deposit system: bottles from water, soft drinks, juices, kvass, beer and other types of bottles. The type and colour of glass depends on the components of the glass. As a result, the glass can be clear, green, brown, blue or produced in other colours.
Is glass packaging recyclable?
Glass, as well as one-way glass packaging for beverages, can be recycled an unlimited number of times without losing the quality of glass. Recycling glass allows to save resources, consume less energy and avoid some of the harmful pollutants and CO2 emissions.
Glass recycling is a great example of the circular economy – glass recycling does not involve generation of unwanted by-products, and it is a closed-loop system involving producers, importers, sellers and consumers.
Every year, USAD collects and forwards for recycling about 9,000 tonnes of glass. This amount allowed to save more than 9 tonnes of natural resources, such as, quartz sand, etc.
What is the history of glass packaging?
Glass was already used before our era – back then, glass production was an exceptional craft, and glassmakers improved their skills and knowledge all their life. The first glass bottle was created using blowing technology. This happened about 1500 BC.
Over the centuries, the masters have been replaced by industrial equipment. Technology has paved the way for glass products to be made faster and more efficiently. At the beginning of the last century, a sectional glass-forming machine was developed, which is still used today for the production of glass bottles.
- It takes 1 million years for a glass bottle to decompose naturally.
- Manufacturing of a glass bottle from primary raw materials requires consumption of 30% more energy than using recycled glass.
- Recycling of 6 tonnes of glass allows to avoid 1 tonne of CO2 emissions. Glass containers collected and forwarded for recycling in Lithuania every year help to reduce CO2 emission into the environment by as much as 1,503 tonnes annually.
- The use of recycled glass reduces water pollution associated with the production of glass from primary raw materials by 50 per cent.
- New glass packaging made from shreds melted in furnaces can return to the store shelf in just 30 days.
- Glass recycling has been taking place for almost 1,700 years.