Glass packaging

Today, glassware for packaging has more or less the same physiognomy in all developed countries. This is an industry whose heavy investments and technology (production rates, working temperatures) could be described as "heavy" like metallurgy, but whose markets (food, pharmaceuticals, perfumery) involve mass consumption industries that require more and more packaging, representing only the first link in a logistics chain where productivity and flexibility are essential factors. Despite increased competition from other materials in its traditional markets, glass packaging is holding up well, especially in Europe. This is due, on the one hand, to the modernization of production facilities, which has boosted productivity and thus kept costs under control, and, on the other hand, to technological efforts which have enabled – glassmakers (but they are not the only ones) – to significantly lighten the weight of their standard packaging, thus enabling them to respond to competition from other materials and to environmental constraints. However, it is clear that these observations are also valid for almost all other packaging materials, which are subject to the same competition and constraints, packaging still being considered by some as the symbol of a tendency to waste, whereas it is practically one of the best indicators of economic development.

Compared with other conventional packaging materials (paper-cardboard, plastics, metal, composites), glass for packaging has a number of specific strengths and weaknesses.

Highlights include:

• its "hygienic" qualities: inertia, non-toxicity, impermeability to gases and odours;

• its image function for content, in food or perfumery-cosmetics;

• transparency;

• its possibilities for enhancing content: flexibility of shapes, colors or decors ;

• short- and medium-term price stability;

• its recyclability to manufacture articles of the same nature, infinitely and without it being possible to distinguish or even measure the quantities of recycled material.

On the other hand, glass for packaging has certain characteristics that are areas for improvement:

• weight, in mass markets (whereas for certain high-end products, this is a characteristic traditionally appreciated);

• mechanical strength due to its "brittle" nature;

• problems linked to the "glass" risk, i.e. its cutting power in the event of accidental breakage.