British Glass concerned by impact of co-mingling waste collections

In 2007, there was a fall of more than 56,000 tonnes of glass going back into closed loop recycling, according to Defra figures. Despite production increasing by more than 46,000 tonnes over the same period in 2006, the actual amount returned to remelt was 696,000 tonnes.

British Glass recycling manager Rebecca Cocking said if this recycled glass had gone back into container manufacture, it would have saved 13,500 tonnes of carbon dioxide, as well as reducing the amount of raw materials required and energy usage.

“The reason behind this decrease in container-ready cullet is the increase in co-mingled collection by local authorities,” she said.

“The result is that the glass for recycling is collected with paper, plastic and metals, colour mixed and ground down to the size of stone grit, making it unsuitable for new containers. It is only suitable for low grade applications such as aggregate from which little or no carbon benefit is derived.”

However, Local Government Authority policy consultant Alice Roberts said local authorities were under pressure to move to co-mingled collection as they faced higher landfill taxes and weight-based recycling targets.

“The pressure to divert rubbish away from landfill is pushing councils to do things to make it easier for householders to recycle so that they can collect a higher tonnage of waste materials. This can mean that what is collected is not always of the top quality,” she said.

British Glass is calling for more kerbside segregation of waste, but Roberts said it was too expensive for councils to sort glass from kerbside collections, and a contribution to funding from producers would go a long way to help.

Cocking would also like to see the re-introduction of bottle banks, which have been declining as councils offer more kerbside collection services.

Although Roberts agreed that there was potential to collect more glass of the right quality at bottle banks, she said there would need to be a much higher density of bottle banks in order for the service to be cost-effective.

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