O-I Launches GLASS4GOOD™ Recycling Merging Glass Recycling and Social Impact

In response for growing demand for recycled glass, O-I has created GLASS4GOOD™ Recycling; a community-based recycling program that incentivizes glass recycling by enhancing local recycling infrastructure with the potential of generating local charitable donations in the communities where O-I employees live and work. This program is an opportunity to provide glass recycling where it might not be available, but it is also an avenue for O-I to give back to the communities in a way that will encourage glass recycling. GLASS4GOOD™ Recycling includes exploring public-private partnerships to overcome barriers to glass recycling and to get glass packaging back into the circular economy.

The idea behind Glass4Good™ is that recycling glass is a win-win-win: a win for keeping glass packaging in the manufacturing stream, a win for helping communities recycle and reduce environmental impact, and a win for community support groups who are benefitting from financial donations tied to Glass4Good.

A pilot program at O-I’s plant in Danville, Virginia, is among the first to test the program as it joins recycling and philanthropy. Glass collection bins are set up around the city. Families drop their glass bottles and jars into the bins, those glass containers are processed and come back to the O-I plant to be created into new glass containers. In the first six weeks of the pilot program at O-I Danville facility over 96,000 pounds of recycled glass was collected.

Glass should never be trash. It’s 100% recyclable and infinitely recyclable, making it a valuable and sustainable packaging material. That’s why it’s important that recycled glass comes back to glass packaging makers versus going to a landfill. That’s a win for the planet!

Glass4Good is also structured to create wins in communities through donations from the O-I Charities Foundation. The O-I Charities Foundation makes a series of financial contributions based on the amount of recycled glass collected.

Beyond Danville, Glass4Good is also being launched at the O-I Toano, Virginia, facility, while O-I is working with its plants, municipalities, and community partners to expand to several more facilities by the end of the year.

O-I’s vision is to be the most innovative, sustainable, chosen supplier of brand-building packaging solutions. Our journey to sustainability includes supporting sustainable communities. Glass4Good is a program that enables us to meet so many of our ambitions, from increasing the amount of recycled glass in our plants to supporting communities where we live and operate.