Improving sorting and quality of the end-of-life automotive glass pieces could provide a new source of recycled glass for flat glass manufacturing. In its position on the revision of the End-of-life Vehicles Directive, Glass for Europe provides background information to policy-makers and offers some reflections on how to support greater recycling of automotive glazing.
“Glass recycling offers many environmental and economic benefits but greater recycling is slowed down by the difficulty in the flat glass industry to access enough waste glass suitable for remelting,” said Iva Ganev, Environment & Climate Policy Manager at Glass for Europe, in an audio statement released after the publication.
Very often, the glass pieces of the vehicle are shredded with the other components and do not enter a recycling route. However, ensuring a proper separation is only the first step. To be ready to enter a glass melting furnace, auto glass pieces need additional sorting and cleaning that guarantee the highest quality of cullet.
“Glass for Europe and its members are actively looking for solutions to enhance recovery and recycling of automotive glass, but all actors have a role to play,” continued Ganev. For example “Car manufacturers can help by designing vehicles in such a way that glass pieces can be more easily removed from vehicles,” while “vehicle dismantlers must have an incentive to dismantle auto glass more systematically before shredding.”
To know more, listen to the audio statement and read the position paper “A revised End-of-life Vehicles Directive that supports greater recycling of automotive glazing”.