Call to Boost Automotive Glass Recycling in EU End-of-Life Vehicles Regulation

Glass for Europe, alongside seven other industry and environmental organisations, co-published a joint call for stronger measures to improve the high-quality recycling and reuse of materials from end-of-life vehicles.

More automotive glass recycling will be crucial for the future of the flat glass sector and should, therefore, be enshrined in the text of the EU End-of-Life Vehicles (ELV) Regulation.

This call underlines that specific requirements are needed in the ELVR for the dismantling and separate treatment of end-of-life glass components, such as windscreens and windows. This is essential to achieving high-quality recycling since glass parts that are shredded with other materials cannot be recycled into new glass.

Dismantling glass components before shredding could enable recycling up to 500,000 tonnes of glass per year. Considering that each tonne of recycled glass used can reduce the consumption of raw materials by 1.2 tonnes and cut CO2 emissions by at least 600 kg, this would represent a reduction of at least 300,000 tonnes of CO2 and 600,000 tonnes of raw materials yearly, in the EU.

Some Member States, including France, Portugal, the Netherlands, and Spain, have already adopted national rules to increase automotive glass recycling. Glass for Europe supports the extension of such practices across the EU through mandatory dismantling requirements and clear quality standards for recycled materials.

This is why, as in our joint statement with stakeholders from the glass value chain last December, we joined this call to raise awareness among EU lawmakers active on the EU End-of-Life Regulation.

Glass recycling starts with glass dismantling. Future legislation should, therefore, ensure that this dismantling happens everywhere in the EU to achieve EU environmental objectives.