In May 2021 the General Assembly of the United Nations approved the International Year of Glass (IYOG2022).

Many glass related activities are planned worldwide; as a prelude to these events the AIGMF announced its first Photography Contest for the age group between 7-24 years on the theme: Glass in our Lives.

German glassmaker Heinz-Glas has welcomed Mr Christian Fröba as Chief Operating Officer for the group.

He will take over the operational lead, supervising the optimisation of the glass production and decoration worldwide.

Mr Fröba successfully completed his mechanical engineering studies from 2000 to 2004 and began his professional career as a design engineer at Emhart Glass in Switzerland.

After successfully completing his MBA in 2010, he held the position of Director After Sales.

Most recently, Mr Fröba was Senior Director End to End Supply Chain and Project Leader Trade Compliance Implementation at Bucher Emhart Glass SA. In addition, he has been an advisory board member of the Research Association of the German Glass Industry from 2009 to 2021.

A New South Wales waste recovery programme is providing co-funding for waste and recycling infrastructure to support the resource recovery sectors response to Australia's waste export ban.

The Environmental Trust awarded 22 grants totalling Aus$24,154,082 in the Remanufacture NSW 2021 round with glass receiving a significant proportion for infrastructure projects.

The globally operating Heinz-Glas Group is starting the second half of 2021 with confidence.

After a strenuous and stressful period, marked by the spread of the Corona virus and the accident of a furnace at the Polish location Dzialdowo, the glassmakers can breathe a sigh of relief. After 6 months in 2021, they are now back at pre-crisis level.

The international market has recovered faster than expected.

A major milestone was reached just a few weeks ago in Changzhou, China.

The construction of the furnace at the newly built production site in Jiangsu province began at the end of July. High-quality glass is expected to roll off the production line as early as the beginning of 2022.

Gerresheimer has set itself ambitious targets in terms of sustainability and consistently implements corresponding measures.

This is also reflected in the result of the current EcoVadis rating, because with 64 out of a maximum of 100 possible points, the company is currently among the top three percent of companies assessed by EcoVadis in a CSR audit in the comparative sector of pharmaceutical suppliers and medical technology.

The company is only two points below the next level, the gold score, which is awarded from 66 points onward as per the current scoring methodology.

Numerous international pharma and cosmetics customers regularly evaluate measures and results with regard to responsible business practices of their suppliers.

The North American Insulation Manufacturers Association (NAIMA) has announced the results of a recent survey of its members’ use of pre- and post-consumer recycled materials in insulation and acoustical products in 2019 and 2020.

The survey includes data from both US and Canadian manufacturing facilities.

According to the survey, US manufacturers used 4.1 billion pounds of recycled glass in the production of residential, commercial, and industrial thermal and acoustical insulation in 2019 and 2020. NAIMA Canada members together used 633 million pounds of recycled glass.

US and Canadian facilities also used more than 1,333 million pounds of recycled blast furnace slag in the production of thermal and acoustical insulation.

Şişecam has reported consolidated net sales of TRY 13 billion for the six months ended June 2021.

International sales accounted for 64% of the total during this period. In the first half of the year, the company produced 2.7 million tons of glass, 1.2 million tons of soda, and 2.5 million tons of industrial raw materials.

Capital expenditures were recorded at TRY 838 million and exports reached to USD 327 million in the first half of the year.

ATIV (Association of Italian Glass Technicians) has announced new dates of 19-21 October 2022 for the XXXIV International ATIV Congress in Parma, Italy.

To be staged at the Parma Campus University, the conference is themed ‘Where Glass Science, Art and Technology Meet Together’.

The main topics to be covered will include: glass science; glass technology, machinery and equipment for the glass industry; glass in architecture; special glasses; characteristics and measures; history of glass; glass and research; and emissions and environment.

Event sponsors currently include Bohemi Chemicals and Eurotherm by Schneider Electric.

Asahi India Glass (AIS) and Vishakha Group have announced a joint venture into solar glass with an in-principle agreement to set up India's largest and state-of-the-art green field solar glass plant at Mundra, Gujarat.

With phase-1 glass manufacturing capacity of up to 3GW of the installable capacity the factory is expected to be commissioned within 18-24 months. AIS will take a minority stake in the solar glass business.

Vishakha Group is one of the largest manufacturers of flexible polymer packaging. It has manufacturing facilities for key components in the entire solar panel value chain: solar backsheets, EVA encapsulant sheets and solar module aluminium frames.