Vetropack: First returnable bottle made of tempered lightweight glass

With its innovative Echovai solution, Vetropack Group, one of Europe’s leading manufacturers of glass packaging, is showcasing the world’s first returnable bottle made of tempered lightweight glass at Drinktec 2022.

An Echovai treated bottle impresses not only with its lower weight, but also with its resistance to abrasion, which results in higher circulation rates. A first pilot project with the Austrian brewery Mohrenbrauerei confirmed this. The containers are not only more durable, the logistics effort and the CO2 emissions per bottle are also reduced with Echovai.

With Echovai, Vetropack has now become the world’s first manufacturer of glass packaging to introduce a solution that significantly improves weight and resistance. It is a particularly robust and material-saving form of lightweight glass bottle that is both up to 30 per cent less in weight than standard returnable bottles but also more resistant to abrasion. “This makes Echovai bottles a truly superior solution, both economically and ecologically. It actually has the potential to transform the market for returnable glass containers,” explained Daniel Egger, Head of Innovation at Vetropack and one of the people responsible for the development of Echovai.