Glass, recycling to grow to 80.4 per cent in 2024 driven by scrap prices
Coreve report: growth in the quantity of material recovered (+2.8%). Per capita collection record in Valle d'Aosta
3' min read
3' min read
The quantity of glass packaging recycled in Italy in 2024 increased: it reached 2,102,979 tonnes against 2,045,768 tonnes in 2023 (+2.8%). There was also a leap in the recycling rate which reached 80.3%, returning to the levels recorded in 2022 after having dropped to 77.4% in 2023. Still above the target set by the EU for 2030 of 75%. In the period 2015-2024, against a growth of 11.8% in the consumer input of glass packaging, recycled quantities increased by 26.6%.
This is the picture that emerges from the latest report by Coreve, the national consortium for glass recovery, which also certifies that in 2024 the consumption of glass products fell slightly, by 0.9 per cent, and consequently the national collection also fell slightly, by 0.7 per cent, reaching a total quantity of approximately 2,383,000 tonnes.
Valle d'Aosta record
.Looking at the regional breakdown, there are still substantial differences between the North and the South: against a national average of 40.4 kg collected per inhabitant, there is a per capita average of 46.7 kg in the North, which falls to 37.8 kg in the Centre, and 33.2 kg in the South. Sicily has a negative record with just 28 kg per inhabitant, while Valle d'Aosta has a positive record with 62 kg per inhabitant.
"In 2023, not a few fibrillations characterised the market, causing for a period a greater recourse to virgin raw materials," notes Coreve president Gianni Scotti: "The resilience of the consortium in its subsidiary role to the market has ensured stability, allowing the resumption of the prevalent use of secondary raw materials to feed the glass industry in Italy. The rest has been done by the citizens who, over the last 10 years, also thanks to massive communication campaigns, have shown that they understand the environmental and economic benefits of better glass recycling".
The price of scrap
.The fibrillations in 2023 refer to a time when the price of scrap was close to EUR 190 per tonne, falling in 2024 and settling in 2025 between EUR 11 and 16. "The price increase due to international speculation led to a greater use of virgin raw material and cheaper foreign secondary raw material by operators in the supply chain, who preferred to leave our conventions for a while and rely on the market," explains Scotti.
