Dutch brewery is looking for innovative and inspiring solutions to engage consumers to increase amount of high quality glass recycling.

The brewery was founded in the 19th century and is now one of the leaders in the premium beer segment in the world. The different premium beers are presented in glass bottles. Well know is the fact that glass is one of the high quality types of packaging that can be recycled and reused, infinitely. From a sustainability point of view, the beauty of glass is that if it is disposed of responsibly, it can be recycled and be returned into new glass bottles within 60 days (market dependent). Furthermore, the more recycled glass added when producing a glass bottle, the lower the carbon emissions. For glass specifically, market life cycle studies show that, on a cradle to cradle basis, every tonne of recycled glass (cullet) saves 670 kg of CO2 (EU average). Expressed in terms of percentages, melting 100% cullet reduces the CO2 emissions by about 58% compared to a situation where no cullet is used. The Dutch brewer operates in many markets around the world. At present the recycling rates for glass vary from 20% to 95%. Within these markets the level of maturity of traditional glass collection, sorting and recycling systems also vary significantly. The process is undeveloped, slow and typically results in poor quality glass that cannot be recycled. The brewer believes that it is their responsibility to find reliable, efficient and effective ways to minimize glass packaging waste and increase recycled content. In this respect the company is looking for innovative solutions to quickly recover post consumer glass packaging from the consumer and return it to their converters or to recycling companies creating closed loops and increasing the recycled content As collection and sorting are key elements to recovery, the client is looking for: - Inspiring ways to engage with the consumer to increase the amount of high-quality packaging responsibly disposed - Create mechanisms for simple, separated, responsible disposal of glass - Track the reliability and results of this system The company has the intention to conclude a technical cooperation agreement, but there is scope for discussing other forms of cooperation and agreements. IMPORTANT: This technical cooperation request refers to an innovation challenge published on the internet platform. If an organization expresses interest before closing date, it will be guided towards this open innovation platform. After registration participants can browse free through other submissions and engage in discussions. All submissions will get feedback by the company on this open platform. The challenge opens on June 7th and closes on July 12th, 2021 Mind that posts on this platform are not confidential. Beside open discussions on the platform, sharing of confidential information will be made possible on demand. After that, the firm will select the SME's with whom they would like to cooperate in the development of a solution. Once the challenge is closed, Expressions of Interest for this technology request will be treated in the traditional way.