# O-I Glass

> For O-I, recycled glass is not a side program. Cullet is a furnace input. The commercial problem is supplying clean, color-sorted, furnace-ready cullet at the right place and time.

- Industry: Packaging, Paper & Glass
- Collection: Active
- Regions: Europe
- Countries: France
- Materials: Cement, Glass, Minerals
- Processes: Recycling, Sorting
- Evidence through: 2026-09-18
- Canonical URL: https://www.materialtransition.com/library/o-i-glass

## Material inputs to resolve

Glass containers, cullet recovery and furnace technology

O-I's 2024 sustainability disclosure reports a 40% global average cullet rate in 2024, while its current sustainability page describes investment in cullet-processing plants, supplier collaboration and more than 124,000 tons of glass collected through 63 closed-loop programs. O-I also identifies GOAT furnace investments at Vayres, Gironcourt and Zipaquira. Public disclosures do not establish a local cullet purchase program, plant acceptance specification, price or committed tonnage.

**10% cullet** About 5% lower melting emissions, company-cited

**Up to 100%** Virgin raw-material substitution potential

**Vayres, France** GOAT furnace started 2023

**Gironcourt, France** GOAT furnace announced for early 2025

- Color-sorted post-consumer glass cullet
- Silica sand, soda ash and limestone
- Energy, oxygen and furnace process inputs

### Outputs and residuals to resolve

- Glass bottles and jars
- Cullet returned to furnace feed
- Fines, ceramics, metals and other contaminants removed upstream

**First decision:** Choose one collection geography and one furnace. Qualify color, particle size, contamination, moisture, delivery cadence and the furnace's cullet acceptance profile before assigning circular value.

## Material system

O-I makes glass containers from virgin batch ingredients and recycled glass, or cullet.

#### Cullet mechanism

The company says cullet requires less energy to melt, and reports approximate emissions reductions as cullet share rises.

#### Furnace technology

O-I describes GOAT systems that combine gas-oxygen melting, waste-heat recovery and cullet preheating.

#### Evidence boundary

Public sources establish the process logic and named French installations. They do not disclose a proposed site's intake terms, glass-color mix, pricing or allocation.

### Decision boundary

O-I's transition lane is physically simple and operationally demanding: a bottle only becomes a new bottle if the recovered glass reaches the furnace clean enough, sorted enough and reliably enough to run the melt.

## Material flow map

| Material or stream | Qualification gate | Process or destination | Evidence still needed |
|-|-|-|-|
| Post-consumer glass | Color, ceramics, metals, organics and particle size | Sorting and cullet processing | Facility acceptance spec and yield |
| Furnace-ready cullet | Moisture, chemistry and delivery cadence | Melt furnace with virgin batch | Plant mix, allocation and production plan |
| Waste heat | Temperature and integration design | Cullet preheating or recovery | Furnace-specific engineering and economics |

This is a public screening map. It separates company-disclosed flows from open qualification work. It does not convert a destination into a buyer or an announced ambition into operating capacity.

## Three defensible entry lanes

#### Map one local cullet basin

Cullet availability is geographic. A national recycling statistic does not feed a particular furnace.

**Next evidence:** Collection partners, color mix, MRF loss, processor capacity and freight radius.

#### Qualify furnace-ready quality

The meaningful specification is not 'recycled glass." It is a furnace-ready batch input.

**Next evidence:** Contamination thresholds, particle size, moisture, test melt and quality-control protocol.

#### Tie GOAT to feedstock readiness

Cullet preheating strengthens the use case only if clean cullet is reliably available.

**Next evidence:** Named furnace, current cullet rate, heat-integration constraints and supply schedule.

## Evidence register

- **2024 Sustainability Report** O-I Glass https://investors.o-i.com/financials/annual-reports/ [1]
- **Sustainability** O-I Glass https://www.o-i.com/sustainability/ [2]
- **Sustainable progress toward decarbonization** O-I Glass https://www.o-i.com/news/o-is-sustainable-progress-towards-decarbonization-in-glass-packaging/ [3]
- **O-I sustainability and recycling ecosystems** O-I Glass https://www.o-i.com/sustainability/sustainability-report/ [4]
- **O-I sustainable progress toward decarbonization** O-I Glass https://www.o-i.com/news/o-is-sustainable-progress-towards-decarbonization-in-glass-packaging/ [3]
- **2024 Sustainability Report** O-I Glass https://staging.o-i.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/2024-Sustainability-Report-English.pdf [5]
- **Veauche furnace and local cullet case** O-I Glass https://www.o-i.com/news/o-i-glass-to-invest-65-million-in-electrification-and-decarbonization-in-veauche-france/ [6]

Source hierarchy: filings and company disclosures first. The brief states what those sources support and leaves the unresolved plant, grade, permit, buyer and mass-balance questions explicit.

## Material Transition editorial interpretation

The next useful working session starts with: Choose one collection geography and one furnace. Qualify color, particle size, contamination, moisture, delivery cadence and the furnace's cullet acceptance profile before assigning circular value.

## Sources

- [1] 2024 Sustainability Report - https://investors.o-i.com/financials/annual-reports/
- [2] Sustainability - https://www.o-i.com/sustainability/
- [3] Sustainable progress toward decarbonization - https://www.o-i.com/news/o-is-sustainable-progress-towards-decarbonization-in-glass-packaging/
- [4] O-I sustainability and recycling ecosystems - https://www.o-i.com/sustainability/sustainability-report/
- [5] 2024 Sustainability Report - https://staging.o-i.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/2024-Sustainability-Report-English.pdf
- [6] Veauche furnace and local cullet case - https://www.o-i.com/news/o-i-glass-to-invest-65-million-in-electrification-and-decarbonization-in-veauche-france/

From the Material Transition company brief library: https://www.materialtransition.com/library/o-i-glass