Fully recycled glass for cosmetics packaging hits the market
The glass, which was first presented to the industry a year ago, is 100 hundred percent recycled using material reclaimed from household and food sector waste.
Infinite glass presents a number of environmental savings, marketing director of perfume at SGD Group, Catherine Descourtieux, explained in a presentation given at the PCD Congress in Paris this week.
The use of 100 per cent recycled material not only cuts out the need for the extraction of new raw material, it also lowers the temperature needed to fuse the glass, which can save up to 15 per cent in energy, she said.
In addition, later this year, SGD Group plans to put into action a new furnace which, according to Descourtieux, should improve the life cycle assessment (LCA) of the products.
The current LCA figures for the material were calculated using a relatively old furnace and the new installation should have improved efficiency.
In September 2009, the first large scale production campaign of the Infinite Glass was launched in the company’s facility in Mers-Les-Bains and the first products using the material will be available in retailers in the next few months.
Although the glass has exactly the same functional properties as materials with lower recycled content, there are small differences in appearance.
Green tint
The Infinite Glass has a slight green tinge which does not always fit specifications of the luxury perfumery industry, which often demands a totally colourless product.
However, Descourtieux explained that the company has managed to add tints to the material that modify the colour and disguise this green effect.
The company said reactions to the material have been positive and it is hoping to do some co-branding to improve uptake.
The idea under discussion is to put the Infinite Glass logo onto products produced with the material, to help the company's brands communicate the nature of the material to consumers, market manager for perfumery and cosmetics at SGD Group, Astrid Dulau, explained.
"It is an attempt to simplify the discussion. At the moment there are a lot of environmental claims and the consumer is confused. We hope that brands will be able to use this symbol to communicate clearly with their consumers about the nature of the packaging," she told CosmeticsDesign-Europe.com.
The logo is inspired by the horizontal figure of eight shape of the lemniscates symbol used to represent infinity in mathematics.
