Holistic approach needed to improve glass recycling

Glass packaging is able to be recyclable and can be recycled endlessly without a loss in the quality or purity of it. — Photo courtesy of the Asia Pacific International Spirits and Wines Alliance

HCM CITY — A holistic approach is key to developing solutions that can drive change in glass recycling in Việt Nam and the ASEAN region, experts suggested.

According to the Glass Packaging Institute, glass is a crucial part of industry, as it makes up the largest proportion of the primary packaging material. The greatest benefit of glass packaging is that it is 100 per cent recyclable and can be recycled endlessly without a loss in its quality or purity of it.

This makes it an ideal candidate for a circular economy, it stressed.

Glass can be made from readily available raw materials such as sand, soda ash, and limestone as well as cullet. Cullet is the term for glass which has been recycled and is ready for the furnace. Cullet can be substituted for up to 95 per cent of the raw materials used to make glass. Through glass recycling, manufacturers benefit through energy savings and a reduction in the consumption of raw materials and carbon emissions, it said.

However, despite these benefits, glass recycling rates in most ASEAN countries remain low compared to other materials and regions, leading to a dependency on glass imports.

A latest report entitled 2024 Sustainability Report in Việt Nam released by the Asia Pacific International Spirits and Wines Alliance (APISWA), which includes a section deep-diving into glass recycling and circularity, revealed that recycling rates in regional countries are estimated to be 14 per cent in Singapore, 10 per cent in Malaysia and 15 per cent in Việt Nam. The rates in EU and the US meanwhile stand at 74 per cent and 33 per cent.

In Việt Nam for example, it added, the lower cost of importing glass cullets from China is primarily driven by the higher cost of domestically recycled glass cullets. The infrastructure for sorting, collecting, and recycling glass bottles in Việt Nam remains largely underdeveloped.

This despite the significant demand from glass manufacturing businesses for recycled glass as a raw material in the region. The determining factor remains low collection rates of glass to be reused into recycled glass content, the report said.

“More can be done to recognise the specific challenges faced by stakeholders across the value chain in Việt Nam — from individual scrap pickers to scrap businesses and glass producers, as well as consumers,” it said.

Bayard Sinnema, commercial director – Asia of glass bottle manufacturer O-I, said: “The glass market in Việt Nam is around 220,000 tonnes, which represents a significant opportunity to build scalable, sustainable infrastructure that could benefit all stakeholders.

"The industry can lead in efforts to educate the glass waste ecosystem on the value of diverting glass from landfills. By showing the opportunities and value in recycling glass, it will be able to attract more investment for building better infrastructure.”

Regional co-operation

Cognisant of the need to do more to address post-consumer waste, governments in ASEAN member states have also begun introducing regulations on Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), requiring manufacturers and importers to contribute to national efforts to increase household recycling rates of materials like PET plastics, aluminum cans, and glass.

While the management of waste post-consumption is the responsibility of government bodies and its related national and local level administrators, EPR schemes extend the responsibility of end-of-life packaging management to producers as well.

Waste collection and treatment responsibilities for manufacturers and importers were first introduced in Việt Nam under the Law on Environment Protection (LEP) in 2005 and 2014. In 2020, the LEP for the first time introduce comprehensive provisions for a EPR scheme. This is supported by the implementation of Circular 02/2022/TT-BTNMT and Decree 08/2022/NĐ-CP. The scope of the LEP includes glass packaging.

With the launching, Việt Nam is among the first countries in Southeast Asia to introduce EPR.

“Along with supporting the Government's efforts in protecting the environment and encouraging recycling in order to foster the growth of Việt Nam's green and circular economies, businesses hope suitable policies will be issued that correspond with the current environment in Việt Nam, motivating manufacturers and recyclers to move toward sustainable development,” shared Chu Thị Vân Anh, vice president, general secretary of the Vietnam Beverage Association (VBA).

Co-operation between parties is needed to have better glass recycling.

Thong Q. Ho, lecturer and research fellow, economy and environment partnership for Southeast Asia (EEPSEA), said: “A single policy is not sufficient for a complex issue, a combination of legal and market-based instruments, as well as working with industry associations to provide public education, known as a behavioral initiative, on glass recycling should be a good option.”

“The EPR scheme is an opportunity for producers to share responsibility with government and society for sustainable development. This involves implementing pilot programmes to assist waste collectors, businesses, and households in lowering the costs of recycling glass or establishing sufficient economic incentives for the glass recycling market. Creating a recycling market for glass waste also contributes to making the glass industry more sustainable by reducing energy consumption and reliance on raw materials,” he said.

In fact, many co-operations have been done across many economic sectors.

For instance, APISWA member companies have invested in solutions that aim to decrease carbon emissions from packaging and encourage circularity and returnability in the supply chain.

In Việt Nam, APISWA also worked with the Economy & Environment Partnership for Southeast Asia (EEPSEA) to study current post-consumer glass waste pathways and value chain.