The consequences of the war in Ukraine are beginning to affect the daily life and consumption of Italians, revealing the moment of difficulty experienced by some sectors, including the glass industry. In fact, in several Italian cities the products packaged in glass. The risk, to be avoided, is the return to less sustainable forms of packaging.
The repercussions of the conflict
The Russian invasion dealt a severe blow to the glass industry. The production chain depends, to a large extent, on five large companies on a planetary scale. And one of these has a series of factories in Ukraine and this weighs on production.
Furthermore, the increase in the cost ofthe energy and raw material it is generating worrying bottlenecks in the sector and a dramatic shortage of glass globally.
The pandemic is buying up glass
In addition to this situation, there are other critical issues, linked to deeper causes. The glass industry had to respond quickly to a shortage of production, generated by an unexpected increase in demand. Over the past two years, thepharmaceutical industry it required hundreds of millions of vials for the anti-covid vaccines. This dizzying demand has forced the entire sector to create exclusive production lines for these supplies.
The urgency of the ecological transition
The other dominant line for the glass supply chain is connected to the urgency of the ecological transition and the push dictated by policies of sustainability local and international.
This dynamic led to thepackaging industry to focus heavily on glass, the most environmentally sustainable packaging system.
Tensions in the agri-food sector
The scenario just described justifies the concern of the Italian glass supply chain, made up of a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises, which purchase the raw material from large global producers and transform it to supply the agri-food market with packaging. To suffer the most, in this area, will be the wine sector, where there are no substitute packaging such as cans or cartons.
The danger of structural crises for some sectors is therefore far from abstract.
Sources: Corriere del Mezzogiorno, Euronews
