In December 2001, plate glass collection banks were installed at two Cambridgeshire County Council recycling centres in March and Whittlesey. Uptake was slow at first, but since summer 2002, participation has been so high that councillors extended the scheme to six other sites in the county: Alconbury, Bluntisham, Grunty Fen, Milton, Thriplow and Wisbech.
Rare
Most glass bring banks accept bottles and jars for container recycling, but facilities to recycle municipal flat glass are relatively rare. Before the pilot, there were no household glass collection facilities in Cambridgeshire.
Now the council is aiming to collect at least 250 tonnes of window, toughened, laminated or mirrored glass from the banks every year – almost eight times the 32.7 tonnes collected by the pilot this year.
Waste campaigns officer at the council, Emma McCrea explained: “Originally we did not have a good response – there was about one collection in six months at each site. But over the past six months or so, we've seen collections at each site every one or two months. “This could be partly to do with high winds and people's greenhouses being broken, but people seem to have got behind the scheme.”
“Thrilled”
Cambridgeshire County Council recycling officer Mark Shelton said: “We are thrilled that the project has been so popular. This scheme is one of a number of new projects designed to increase the range of materials that can be recycled in Cambridgeshire.”
The glass is collected by Viridor-Richardson and reprocessed at their plant in Peterborough for a monthly charge to the council of 20 per month per site. Cambridgeshire's recycling rate is 22% and councillors aim to increase this to 33% by 2003.
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