International Year of Glass: Bormioli gives glass “serious rethink” with new pack initiatives

17 Feb 2022 --- Bormioli Pharma is announcing new research and innovation projects to mark the start of the International Year of Glass, currently underway in Geneva, Switzerland, composed of talks and events highlighting the role of glass in environmental sustainability and social infrastructure.

Through a series of initiatives, combining internal resources with research centers, universities and start-ups, the company aims to develop better performing and more environmentally sustainable glass products.

In particular, a new collaboration with the Italian Institute of Materials for Electronics and Magnesium (IMEM-CNR) within a new research center dedicated to glass is now underway.

“We are ready to confirm our role as innovators also in the field of glass, with several concrete research and development initiatives,” comments Andrea Lodetti, CEO of Bormioli Pharma.

Bormioli Pharma is developing new coatings to improve glass performance for packaging.“This commitment is all the more important in a sector such as pharmaceuticals, where glass has not only the function of containment, but of protecting therapeutic efficacy, and where the constant increase in production numbers requires a serious rethinking of our responsibilities toward the environment.”

Experimentation
Through the funding of a PhD scholarship lasting three years, the collaboration will facilitate the development of new external and internal coatings designed to increase the performance of glass, both from a chemical and mechanical standpoint.

On the performance front, the company is also experimenting – again due to a specific collaboration with the IMEM-CNR – with an innovative treatment to make Type II (soda-lime) glass bottles even more resistant, thus ensuring greater stability of the pharmaceutical formulations they will contain.

On the environmental sustainability front, Bormioli Pharma has chosen to adhere to Glass Futures, a British project that aims to develop an innovative, low CO2 emission approach to glass production. The project, which will last ten years, will soon see the opening of a pilot furnace in the UK dedicated to the experimentation and application of these technologies.

Environmental sustainability is an increasingly central theme for Bormioli Pharma, says Lodetti, who has committed to manufacturing 50% of its products using materials with low environmental impact by 2025. By the middle of this year, the company says it will publish its first Integrated Report based on UN Environmental Sustainability Goal parameters.

Glass Futures
Bormioli Pharma’s decision to use Glass Future’s carbon emission approach comes following the UK project’s ongoing research into improving the ecological footprint of glass usage and production.

Currently, glass manufacturing is a significant contributor to environmental damage, producing higher greenhouse gas emission rates than plastics and other common packaging materials.

In 2020, Encirc glass container manufacturer and Glass Futures began partnering on a project to create “the world’s most sustainable glass bottle.” Using bio-fuel made from plant materials, the project aims to offer a more eco-friendly fuel alternative to the fossil fuels traditionally used by the glass sector.

Last year, Diageo revealed its involvement in a successful pilot project to pioneer the lowest carbon footprint glass bottles “ever produced” for a Scotch whisky brand.

The distiller’s collaboration with glass manufacturer Encirc and Glass Futures used waste-based biofuel-powered furnaces to reduce the bottle-making process’ carbon footprint by up to 90%.

By Louis Gore-Langton

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