Erik Muijsenberg, Vice President of Glass Service Group, has been invited by the Ceramics Society of Japan to be a keynote speaker at the upcoming 12th AFPG 2020 meeting on 8 December. Due to Covid-19 restrictions, this meeting has become an online event that can be attended worldwide.

Mr Muijsenberg has been asked to talk about ‘Recent trends in the European glass industry’. He will explain how Europe is handling CO2 reduction requirements with strong investments into renewable energy and how the first offered Horizontal Hot Top Electric Hybrid Melter (H2EM) presented by GS and FIC in 2018 can help the industry achieve those goals. GS sister company FlammaTec already has hydrogen burners available to add to this concept.

The European glass container industry unveiled a glass hallmark this week, designed to highlight the environmental and health benefits of choosing products packaged in glass at a glance.

The hallmark is now available for licensed use on all glass packaging. The packaging symbol serves as a visual tool for brands and retailers to better communicate health and environmental credentials of glass to consumers, backed by growing consumer preference for products in glass packaging.

Following success in the Sustainability Awards in October, Ardagh Group has collected a World Beverage Innovation Award and a British Glass Glass Focus Award for its recycled glass briquettes project.

This is a method of producing remeltable briquettes from the fine particle glass rejected during the recycling process. 

“Receiving these industry awards is such amazing recognition of the effort put into the project by everyone involved, to prove the concept of remeltable briquettes produced from glass cullet fines, closing the glass loop” said Brendan O’Meara, from Ardagh’s European Glass Cullet team, who spearheaded the project.

www.ardaghgroup.com

AGC has completed an R&D building at the Yokohama Technical Center (Tsurumi-ku, Yokohama) at a total cost of approximately 20 billion yen. The facility houses a collaborative creation space called ‘AO (AO/AGC OPEN SQUARE)’, established to accelerate internal and external collaboration.

The project is based on a concept of beng a place for seamless internal and external integration, response and collaboration.

It is expected to significantly improve the speed of R&D through the consolidation and integration of the R&D functions related to basic technology, new products, processes and facility technology, which had previously been dispersed in two locations.

In order to overcome the challenges faced by the glass industry during the Covid-19 pandemic, the SORG Group has been required to learn and adapt quickly to a different way of operating.

Recently, one of the group’s customers – ISANTI Glass in South Africa – had to instigate a strict lockdown and dramatically reduce tonnage from its furnace in the short-term.

This led to a frozen glass melt in the throat area, which can cause a blockage and other critical defects. Therefore, the furnace had to be stopped as a precautionary measure and started again as quickly as possible, to ensure minimal loss of revenue.

The Stoelzle Glass Group has been awarded GOLD status by the ECOVADIS platform, important recognition of the glassmaker’s steadily increasing efforts and measures undertaken in the field of sustainability in recent years.

Stoelzle ranks within the top 4% of all glass manufacturers assessed by Ecovadis. “We are proud about our promotion to the Ecovadis Gold status” said Georg Feith, CEO of

the Glass Group. “This remarkable rating results clearly from our success in reaching a couple of important sustainability milestones, such as the certification according to ISO5001 and ISO14001, the publication of our second GRI based Sustainability Report, our Group-wide Code of Conduct, as well as the successful implementation of a Sustainable Supply Chain Management.”

Slovenian glass packaging manufacturer Steklarna Hrastnik has incorporated EME technology within its latest investment project.

The upgraded batch plant and cullet return system allows Steklarna Hrastnik to incorporate innovative approaches within its production.

This improve glass quality and provides a more environmentally-friendly production facility. In addition to guaranteeing the technical performance of the equipment, EME focused on minimising spillage and dust emissions throughout the plant.

www.eme.de

AGC Glass Europe has acquired the Etex portfolio of OEM customers in the German market for fire-resistant glass.

Etex is a multi-national group that manufactures and sells sustainable materials and solutions for the construction and industrial markets, including the Promat brand of insulating and fire-protection materials.

This market, in which Etex has acquired a leadership position as a producer and distributor of fire-resistant glass, primarily comprises German designers and manufacturers of industrial doors that provide passive fire protection.

www.agc-glass.eu

Sialon Ceramics Ltd and Aktive Arc Ultrasonics sarl have announced a breakthrough in ultrasonic molten gas technology that can reduce energy costs by 20% and reduce the environmental impact of glass manufacture.

The process uses an innovative ultrasonic generator and a proprietary ceramic sonotrode to treat large volumes of high viscosity molten glass at temperatures of up to 1600oC.

The ultrasonic gas melt degassing technology increases process efficiency, reducing the refining temperature and saving up to 20% of the energy cost.