BERLIN: Empty bottles are recycled to make new ones but cracked or defective car windscreens are not.
Audi says it wants to change that and, together with its industry partners, the German carmaker aims to set up a closed material cycle for car glass to help reduce emissions and waste.
The idea is to turn damaged automotive glass panes into recyclable material using a multi-stage process. The car windows are first broken into small pieces and non-glass impurities like glue residue are eliminated.
The resulting glass granulate is melted down and turned into new plate glass. That plate glass is then turned into new car windows.
The one-year pilot operation with partner firms Reiling, Saint-Gobain Glass and Saint-Gobain Sekurit started in January. If this pilot project is successful, the windows produced this way will be used in models in the Audi Q4 e-tron series in the future.
Audi said aluminium scraps from its press shop have been introduced into a similar closed circuit since 2017. With glass, another material circuit will now be closed.
"Our goal is to use secondary materials everywhere where it is technically possible and economically reasonable to do so," said Marco Philippi, who heads procurement atrategy
Audi says this measure could help reduce carbon emissions as recycling means up to 30% less carbon dioxide compared with manufacturing new glass.