Production of Glass
Historically, Belgium is a country of glass producers. Present in our country since the Middle Ages, the Belgian glass industry has been a reference on a world scale since the end of the 19th century.
Today, glass contributes to creating a sustainable society: it provides inert and recyclable containers for daily goods, improves natural lighting in our spaces, and ensures energy savings in buildings through insulation and adapted glazing.
Glass is everywhere
Glass is a natural, mineral and inert material, 100% recyclable and can be recycled an infinite number of times without any change to its properties.
Prized by the ancient Egyptians, mentioned in the Holy Scriptures in the 5th century BC, described by Pliny the Elder two centuries before Christ, glass is one of the oldest materials manufactured by mankind.
Today, the applications of glass products are immense and everywhere mostly without being seen. Glass is found in interior and exterior construction: glazing, partitions, furniture, facades, skylights, mirrors, flat screens, etc. In the automotive sector: glazing, interior and exterior mirrors, fibreglass in composite body parts, etc. In food packaging (jars, bottles, pots, etc.) and in the cosmetics and perfumery industry (bottles and jars).
Glass : an essential product for our economies
In addition to these ‘traditional’ applications, we are also finding more and more glass products that contribute to the fight against global warming: super-insulating glazing, solar panels, insulation materials, fibreglass in wind turbine blades, etc.
The market for glass is highly competitive, and companies need to continuously innovate and perform in order to stay ahead. This includes developing premium products and special applications and performances to add value and differentiate themselves from competitors.
The glass industry also plays a vital role in local economies, particularly in regions with lower employment rates.
= 1 ton of cullet
including collected hollow glass
The glass production process
Glass is produced from three basic raw materials: sand, soda and lime, to which an increasingly significant proportion of recycled glass (cullet) is added. Incorporating one tonne of cullet saves 1.2 tonnes of raw materials and 700 kg of CO2.
These raw materials are melted in a furnace at a temperature of around 1500°C and then the molten glass is refined to form the desired product. Today, glass furnaces are mainly fuelled by natural gas, but electrification of the process is becoming increasingly important, along with consideration of other low-carbon fuels and CO2 capture.
Once the desired finished glass product has been manufactured, its sustainable application enables consumers to reduce their carbon footprint. Ideally, at the end of its life, the glass product is collected and sorted for recycling to start a new glass cycle.
Glass recycling
The infinite recyclability of glass necessarily requires optimal, contamination-free collection and sorting. The glass bottle deposit system for collecting packaging glass in Belgium achieves a collection rate of 100%, making Belgium the European leader in this field.
With the rise of the circular economy, the collection, sorting and recycling of other glass products (glazing, insulation materials/glass wool) is attracting real interest from all players in the chain, and discussions on the development of these recycling channels are underway.