The first capsule designed to improve recycling and make glass packaging increasingly sustainable
Every year countless glass bottle necks end up in landfill and are not sent for recycling because they are covered by capsules that remain adhered. Treatment systems, in fact, cannot separate the capsules from the bottle necks, discarding large quantities of glass that could instead become secondary raw material. This represents waste that also imposes high landfill disposal costs, reduces the percentage of recycled glass in the country and forces glassworks to use virgin raw materials with higher energy and environmental costs.
For this reason, Intercap, a leading company in the production of hermetic closures and capsules for wines and sparkling wines, with the support of CoReVe, the Glass Recovery Consortium, has designed I-Zip, the first entirely and easily removable capsule. I-Zip is an example of how research and investment in ecodesign enable significant improvement in supply chain results: applied to wine packaging, I-Zip allows its complete removal in two simple gestures and enables the entire bottle to be recycled, without material waste.
"I-Zip enables total glass recovery without any part of the bottle being excluded from recycling. This simple innovation could allow a significant increase in cullet sent for recycling, as well as inducing consumers towards more conscious consumption in terms of sustainability," declared Gianni Scotti, President of CoReVe at the I-Zip presentation event that took place at Ecomondo.
"I-zip is not just a capsule: it is a gesture of respect towards wine, territory and the future. A concrete example of ecodesign applied to the world of wine packaging," recalled Marco Fornaro, Commercial Director of Intercap.
Italy surpassed the 75% target set by the EU 11 years early and in 2024 reached 80.3% in terms of glass recycling, but it is essential to improve collection quality and technologies to have increasingly better quality secondary raw material. Italian treatment plants are notably considered among the most technologically advanced worldwide. Capable of separating metals, non-fusibles such as ceramics and borosilicate glass and lead contained in crystal, they manage to separate secondary raw material by colour and size. However, there is still significant material loss due to the presence of capsules that remain adhered. The active collaboration between CoReVe and Intercap demonstrates how important it is to create a system for supply chain circularity.
