SCHOTT’s aim to become climate neutral by 2030 sees the company launch a pilot project at its headquarters in Mainz to test large-scale use of hydrogen in glass production.

The company and its project partners are investing more than €714,000, including an award of around €338,000 from the European Regional Development Fund to develop a climate friendly glass melting process.

In this trial, the R&D experts at SCHOTT will gradually replace natural gas with hydrogen.

Over the course of a month, the ratio of hydrogen in the natural gas/hydrogen mixture will be gradually increased to up to 35% by volume in three test phases lasting around 10 days each.

This large-scale test is breaking new ground for the specialty glass industry.

The new BMW i7 electric car features a headlight that puts every other light in the shade. In partnership with Swarovski, the company has developed a crystal headlight that guarantees an effect like never before.

Tom Binder, Head of Exterior Light Design at BMW, speaks of a step that no one has taken before: “Up to now, you have only seen homogeneous light strips on the road – the crystal headlights are the complete opposite of that. The dazzling, vibrant light image is a world apart from the familiar accurate light graphic. The precision is in the glass material, though, which can be machined much more finely and precisely than plastic.”

This unique project presented new challenges to BMW engineers and Swarovski product developers alike.

Developed to help the glass community of fabricators, processors, wholesalers, architects and specifiers learn more about glass and the role it plays as a design and building material.

The new Guardian Glass Training Center is a digital learning platform that offers a variety of online interactive training tools and resources, including video-based learning sessions, accredited training modules, webinars and an in-person training booking system.

The Guardian Glass Training Center platform provides users with a dashboard and easy-to-use interface with personalization and gamification features.

It enables users to take their training in the form of online video learning sessions, which are supported by quizzes and presentations.

Visy is to invest Aus$700 million on an expansion of its Queensland recycling and manufacturing operations.

Under the plan, the company will invest $500 million to build a new glass food and beverage container recycling and manufacturing facility in Yatala; a new $150 million corrugated box factory at Hemmant; and invest $48 million in major upgrades to the company’s material recovery facility (MRF) on Gibson Island.

“This is the largest investment Visy has ever made in Queensland,” said Mr Pratt, “and is part of my pledge to invest $2 billion in Australia over the decade."

The St. Gallen, Switzerland site of SCHOTT will see a significant expansion in production capacity of ready-to-use (RTU) cartridges.

This drug containment and delivery solution is used to store and administer drugs with the help of pen injectors or wearable devices.

The company can deliver these cartridges washed, siliconized, crimped, and pre-sterilized in a nest/tub or tray configuration.

This allows pharma companies to start the drug filling process immediately without having to take care of washing, siliconization, or sterilization themselves.

Sibelco has officially inaugurated its new glass recycling plant at San Cesario sul Panaro, Modena, Italy.

The new plant, which stands on a site originally acquired in January 2020, is the latest addition to the company’s growing glass recycling business and will further strengthen a leading position in Italy.

After acquiring the site in 2020, Sibelco began a major clean-up of the existing facilities.

This included removal of around 50,000 tonnes of waste glass which had accumulated over previous years of operation.

Brazilian brewer, Ambev, is investing 870 million reais (approximately $154 million USD) in a new sustainable glass plant in Paraná.

It will have the capacity to produce bottles from recycled collected in partnership with local companies and organizations specialising in reverse logistics.

The facility will help ensure further progress toward our Circular Packaging Goal of having 100% of the company’s products in either returnable packaging or made from majority recycled content by 2025. 

Fabrica de Vidros Divulgacao Ambev will operate with 100% renewable electricity or renewable purchased electricity, have the capacity to run on biofuels, and use cutting-edge technology to ensure high water and energy efficiency.

Glass recycler Maltha, as with other Renewi and Coolrec sites in the Netherlands, has been recertified at level 4 on the CO2 Performance Ladder, a sustainability tool that encourages companies to measure and reduce CO2 emissions from their business operations, projects and within the chain.

The performance ladder is primarily promoted and applied in public tenders during which demonstrable efforts regarding reduced CO2 emissions are rewarded in the form of a (fictitious) reduction on the tender price.

The ASEAN Federation of Glass Manufacturers (AFGM) has announced that the 44th ASEAN Glass Conference will take place on 30 October – 3 November in Pattaya, Thailand.

Following postponements in 2020 and 2021 due to the global pandemic, the 2022 conference will be hosted by the Glass Manufacturers Industry Club, The Federation of Thai Industries (GMFTI) with Glass Worldwide as exclusive official journal. The event will be themed ‘Glass: Sustainable World Solutions’.

“After carefully considering the situations, the AFGM has decided that it is time to stage the 44th ASEAN Glass Conference and on behalf of the AFGM, it is my greatest honour to formally invite you all,” said Harris Hendraka, Chairman of the AFGM.