100 sign up as Gummer heads north to launch Valpak glass scheme

With more than 100 local authorities signed up for its bottle bank scheme, Valpak is receiving criticism and praise for its glass collection plans.

Next week the formal launch of the scheme takes place in Huddersfield, part of the Kirklees Borough Council area.

Glass collected from the bottle banks in Huddersfield and many other parts of the county will be used by Rexam Glass, which is thought to be a Valpak member. It is supplied by Glass Recycling (UK) of Barnsley. Other cullet users, including Rockware, will also be supplied under the Valpak scheme.

Such is the importance that Valpak attaches to its glass programme, that Valpak chairman John Gummer is to himself travel to Huddersfield on Monday to launch the banks.

The glass in Huddersfield will be collected on a traditional sorted basis. However, in the London area Valpak is still planning mixed collections of material both from pubs and clubs and has written to some London boroughs about this. However, it has stepped back from introducing mixed bottle banks for the time being.

There is a view in some quarters that some London councils have failed to get their act together on glass and so the Valpak scheme is timely. Others see it more as a case that councils have been underpaid by the bottle makers over recent years for the cullet.
Some of the glass in the London area and elsewhere, and especially any mixed glass, will go to RMC for turning into secondary aggregates.

With collection costs from clubs put at about 40 a tonne and from bottlebanks at about 20 a tonne, observers say that Valpak must be expecting that PRN prices will be worth 40 or more for glass next year to cover the costs of the scheme. It is likely that a very small amount will be paid for the material by the aggregate makers.

Views in the glass industry were broad. One observer said that “colour separation needed to be maximised to ensure that the glass industry reaches maximum use of cullet”.

Another commented: “Valpak should not be seen as the enemy. They have not done it as a threat. What they have done is woken everyone in the industry up. They are our friends not our enemies.”

Other commentators said that the Valpak scheme from pubs and clubs would be well suited to the aggregates sector because of the high level of contamination likely from ceramics (cups and plates).