Glass bottles are increasingly becoming a mainstream packaging option. More and more high-end food, beverage and other products are opting for glass bottle packaging. However, a hard-hitting reality that needs to be faced is that the glass bottle recycling rate is much lower than that of plastic bottles.
Over the past few years, the recycling rate of plastic bottles has significantly increased with the progress of recycling and reusing technology. However, almost no progress has been made in recycling and utilizing glass bottles, and existing technology for glass bottle recycling and reusing is also very unsatisfactory. This leads to a low glass bottle recycling rate, and the issue of an excessive amount of discarded glass bottles is becoming a new challenge.
We must now accelerate innovation and improvement in glass bottle recycling and reusing technology. In fact, crushed glass bottle packaging material can be used as building materials or be re-used. However, the transportation cost of recycled glass bottles outweighs its reusing value, resulting in low market incentives for glass bottle recycling.
Now, in order to increase the glass bottle recycling rate, we need to reduce the cost of glass bottle recycling and reusing, making its reusing cost lower than the cost of manufacturing new products. Only then can we achieve market-driven recycling.
The glass bottle packaging market has made a noticeable comeback in recent years, with a rapid increase in order volumes. However, as a traditional packaging product, glass bottles have many issues that hinder their market competitiveness. Chinese glass bottle manufacturers need to address these issues and actively improve.
The cost of producing the glass bottle, including fuel, soda ash, silica sand and other raw materials, is constantly rising. The rising cost of raw materials leads to high production costs for glass bottles, reducing their competitiveness among other packaging materials. In this regard, the prices of raw materials are determined by the upstream market, and glass bottle manufacturers cannot change them. The only solution for glass bottle manufacturers is to reduce costs incurred by energy consumption and to save energy through improving production processes.
The labor cost of producing the glass bottle has also increased nearly 5-6 times compared to ten years ago. Due to the labor-intensive nature of the glass bottle industry, the rising labor cost has put a great deal of pressure on glass bottle companies. Improving the automation of glass bottle production equipment and reducing the labor force used in glass bottle production is a pressing issue that needs to be resolved.
