At the recent Furnace Solutions Conference in St Helens, UK, delegates were encouraged to join the UK Glass and Glazing Collective which aims to raise awareness of the glass industry within the UK government.

The collective brings together the Glass and Glazing Federation, Glass Futures, British Glass Manufacturers’ Confederation, Society of Glass Technology and the Worshipful Company of Glass Sellers of London under one umbrella.

Stuart Hakes, chairman of the Worshipful Company of Glass Sellers’ glass committee, said the aim is to change the government’s attitude towards the glass industry.

“The government doesn’t understand that we are living in the glass age. It has a steel council which it listens to, but I believe that the glass industry should have a council as well.

"So one of the objectives could be to explore that option with our members.

“So this is a collective to be in; everybody under one umbrella to act together instead of having slightly different messages at different times to government.”

The collective hosted a Parliamentary reception last year and has plans to organise another one soon.

The reception was hosted in the heart of UK government, in the House of Parliament and was attended by politicians.

It called for five objectives:

*A UK industrial decarbonisation strategy that supports glass.

*Fair and effective recycling and producer responsibility systems.

*A level playing field in producer responsibility and deposit return schemes

*Incentives for high-efficiency glazing and UK-made glass.

*Long-term policy stability and structured engagement with industry.

Mr Hakes said: “We recognise that the industry is at a crossroads and that something needs to be done.

We need to get government to understand the importance of glass both to the country but also more importantly to civilisation at large.”

The collective staged a meeting during Furnace Solutions for representatives of all the member organisations to discuss further opportunities to raise the profile of the sector with government and other key stakeholders.

For more information the Glass and Glazing Collective website is https://britglass.org.uk/UK-Gl...