From empty bottles to original, everyday utensils: the story of a company that has been successful in the Chianti region in recycling glass
According to data reported by CoReVe (Consortium for the Recovery of Glass), recycling of this material in Italy would reach 81 percent in 2022, setting it at +4.2 percent compared to 2021.
But this is not enough, compared to how many bottles are wasted that could be recovered instead.
This is well known by Cristiano Iozzi and Luigi Taglialavore, two dear friends who, united by a common passion for wine and Tuscan traditions and thanks to their respective work experiences in the fabulous Chianti wineries, have noticed the huge amount of empty bottles that are thrown away daily, even though they are still in excellent condition.
And so, driven by a desire to reduce this waste as much as possible, they asked themselves what was the best way to create something useful and innovative.
Even after tastings and high-profile events, a huge number of empty bottles were being thrown away, although still in perfect condition.
And hence arise their goals as a company, Amarzo, which is to safeguard the environment and at the same time continue to give life and luster to Italian craftsmanship known worldwide for its quality and elegance!
The challenge is to try to give empty glass bottles a new life that is as useful and rich as their previous one. And, after careful research, the team managed to create a line of original, handmade products by Italian artisans. Elegant as well as useful products that bring class and distinctiveness into homes while supporting the area of glass recycling in parallel, “to safeguard the environment.”
As founding partner Luigi recounts, “Cristiano and I are two former cellarers who, over time, had noticed the incessant high number of constantly thrown-away and unused bottles of wine that populated the many wineries we worked in. And, absurdly, hard data states that instead glass is one of the most durable materials in existence, yet it is remelted after 2 months on average. Moreover, during the remelting of glass there is an estimated large input of Co2 directly into the environment as well as the use of new raw materials such as silicon sand and so on. A real paradox, in short. So we decided to give a second life to these bottles destined to end their own.”
Availing itself of the knowledge of glass cutting and grinding that has a 100-year history in Colle di Val d’Elsa, the town in which it resides, the company was thus able to resume a craft that was disappearing: “To date, we are able to operate thanks to an extensive network of empty bottle recovery through restaurants and wine shops located in the province of Siena, and thanks to esteemed Tuscan craftsmen, we are able to carry out cutting, grinding, taping and polishing. These are four stages of work that make it possible to cut and make a part of the glass soft and shiny, rather than leaving it raw.”
And so, from scraps from the world of wine and hospitality, but not only, objects for the table come to life, including glasses, trays, pitchers as well as customized products, “because thanks to our cutting possibilities, the only limit is imagination.”
