Figures from the glass container industry federation FEVE indicate that the number of glass containers produced in western Europe has enjoyed a slight increase for the second year running. Overall production increased by 1.1% to 18.4M/tonnes in 2001. However, there is a complicated pattern of change across the different EU countries. Germany is in first place, and experienced a 0.3% output to 4.27M/tonnes. In the UK, output fell by 0/5%, nearly 9,000/tonnes, to 1.71M/tonnes. Greece enjoyed the biggest increase in output, both in absolute terms and as a percentage. Tonnage in Greece rose by 78% to 157,000/tonnes. In terms of rates for recycling glass, big increases occurred in Italy and the UK in 2001. However, this was offset by falling rates in Spain, Turkey and Finland.
