Closing the Glass Loop

Rationale

Products in glass bottles and jars are usually consumed and discarded in two major points of consumption: households and hotels, cafés and restaurants (HORECA).

Because Hotels, Cafés and Restaurants are important markets for glass-packed products, a key challenge to meeting the Close the Glass Loop target is to increase the glass collection rate in the HORECA channel. This channel is renowned for being fragmented with limited data readily available.

Therefore, the purpose of this study is to gain a greater understanding of glass usage in the HORECA channel to enable informed decisions to be made on how best to increase glass collection for recycling rates in this channel.

Study summary

Close the Glass Loop commissioned Oakdene Hollins to investigate one-way beverage glass packaging in the HORECA channel across the EU-27MS + the UK. The two main datasets used to undertake the analysis were purchased from GlobalData and comprised of:

• Beverages Placed on Market (POM) in the HORECA channel in one-way glass by country and by product category in million units and million litres in 2019; and;

• Number of HORECA establishments by country and by establishment type (Pubs, clubs and bars, accommodation and restaurants) in 2019.

Key findings

In 2019, there were 91.7 billion beverage containers placed on market (POM) in glass in the EU-27MS + the UK and one-way HORECA glass accounted for 9.6 billion units or 10%.

It is estimated that over 3 million tonnes of one-way glass were POM in the HORECA channel with nearly two-thirds (65.3%) from the UK, Italy, Spain, France, Germany and Portugal.

This is a significant quantity of glass and anecdotally most stakeholders suggested that the collection for recycling rates in the HORECA channel is lower than that of the household channel. Therefore, a concerted effort is required to increase the collection for recycling rate to enable the CGL initiative to meet its 90% target by 2030.