Glass recycling collection hits EU record
82.2% collected across the EU, and the gap between member states is the part that eventually lands on a brewery's bottle spec.
Our take
The headline is good news and the footnote is the one to read. The average is 82.2%, the target is 90% by 2030, and the spread between countries is wide enough that the people reporting it named it as the problem.
For a brewery none of this arrives as a recycling statistic. It arrives as packaging rules: a design for recycling standard, then a bottle, a closure and a label adhesive that either comply or do not, then paperwork.
Small brewers rarely see it coming, because it reaches them through their glass supplier months after the decision was taken somewhere else. Asking that supplier what is changing costs one email and is worth more than reading any regulation.
The reporting is The Brewers Journal’s. The opinion above is ours, and we have not reproduced their article. Read it where it was published →