Glass reprocessors have called for more to be done to capture clear recovered glass for remelt from the waste stream due to an ongoing shortage of suitable UK material.

Members of the glass recycling sector are calling for a specific campaign to gather more clear glass from the waste stream

Traditionally, there has always been imbalance in the make-up of the domestic glass market, with two-thirds of glass containers produced in the UK being clear but a large amount of that which is used and enters the waste stream being brown or green and originating from Europe.

However, glass reprocessors claim that the this imbalance is increasing due in part to more councils adopting commingled or mixed recycling collections which means clear glass is mixed up with other colours and therefore cannot be recycled into new clear bottles.

The fact that clear glass only accounts for between 20 and 40% of recovered glass going into remelt has forced furnaces to import increased clear cullet from abroad.

In a bid to combat this, Ron England of Yorkshire-based Glass Recycling UK told letsrecycle.com that he wanted WRAP or Defra to launch a campaign aimed at capturing more of the often-overlooked areas of the clear glass stream - such as baby food and jam jars.

He said: "Now we say we have got the technology and you just have to give it a rinse and put the lid back on and we can sort it. Promoting that is hard with British Glass trying to find the cash to do a promotion and determine whether it is cost effective or not. The question is whether Defra or WRAP should be doing that."

David Workman, director general of glass container trade body British Glass, said that 2009 had been "on the whole, quite encouraging" in terms of the amount of glass recycled but agreed that more needed to be done to target clear glass in particular.

"We have an issue in that most of what we produce in the UK is clear glass but because we import a lot of products in green glass there is an issue now with clear glass separation," he said. "We would like bottle banks so we can separate all the colours but the most important is to separate the clear from the other colours."

WRAP

In response to the concerns voiced by those in the sector, a spokeswoman for WRAP told letsrecycle.com: "WRAP is aware of the concerns of the glass industry and has been developing support and guidance to encourage local authorities to help facilitate greater separation and recycling of clear glass to ensure more can go to remelt applications."

WRAP also pointed to guidance, entitled ‘Choosing and improving your glass collection service', published in 2008 which was based on work with the waste sector and local authorities and geared towards capturing more glass of a sufficient quality for remelt.

Carbon-based

Defra outlined plans in December last year to develop carbon-based targets for materials such as glass (see letsrecycle.com story). This would potentially benefit glass collected for remelt applications and could drive up the collection of clear glass.

Mr Workman welcomed the proposal at the time. However, he said it would be important to see something "concrete" to back this up in 2010.

He told letsrecycle.com: "We anxiously await consultation on the revised Waste Strategy for the UK and whether the government is going to act to allow more to go back into remelt by improving quality standards at MRFs and the kerbside."

Clear cullet

On the ground, reprocessors said that they have seen a marked decline in available clear glass going back into remelt.

One purchasing manager told letsrecycle.com: "When I started out down here we were putting seven loads of flint [clear cullet] out a week and now we are down to two. It is all going into mixed glass."

"Quality is ten times worse than it was, it is just appalling. It is not that we don't want to sell it to bottle makers, really we do. It's just that the quality is so appalling we just can't."

Comments from glass reprocessors and British Glass suggest that, if anything, the situation has worsened since a clear glass deficit was identified by WRAP at the end of 2008 (see letsrecycle.com story).

Bring Banks

One way in which British Glass claims that quality could be improved would be an increased roll-out of bring banks, targeting the entertainment industry - such as pubs and clubs - and in communal areas, such as high rise flats.

Mr Workman said: "It is also a matter of education and getting people to participate and we know people will participate if it is easy for them to do so."

The use of bring banks to improve the quality of glass collected at the kerbside was touted previously by waste management firms Veolia Environment Services and SITA UK but caution was urged on introducing them due to the impact on existing logistics (see letsrecycle.com story).

One glass reprocessor told letsrecycle.com that "nothing is going to change overnight" and added: "I am not very optimistic for 2010. I think that the volume going for remelt will continue to go down and down as long as there is a subsidy for road fill."