Berryman gets 1 million new colour sorting equipment

The glass collection company claims the colour enhancement facility is the “UK's largest,” able to process the plant's full capacity of 200,000 tonnes. But a spokesman for the firm would not reveal the rate of tonnes per hour that it can process, or the identity of the machines' manufacturer.

Contamination

The facility, consisting of multiple colour detection machines, has been running for around two months and are achieving 99.5% pure colour on clear glass – a reduction from the 95% achieved before. The level of colour contamination within coloured glass streams has also been reduced – from around 10% to less than 3%.

Berryman's new colour enhancement machinery

Each machine uses two high resolution continuously scanning digital cameras to find glass fragments of the wrong colour.

When a piece of such glass is spotted, a high pressure air jet is activated which blows the glass out of the stream into a storage bin.

The equipment will improve the quality of cullet delivered to Berryman's partner, container manufacturer Rockware Glass.

In a statement, Berryman said: “The introduction of this world class colour enhancement technology means that Rockware are able to use the highest standard of clear glass.”

Unsorted

But the facility is not intended to take completely unsorted glass and the company stressed that the majority of cullet accepted must have been colour separated by the public or a collector in order to achieve such high levels of colour purity.

Berryman and Rockware are believed to be working on developing an even more advanced colour separation technology which may be able to take a larger share of mixed glass. But Mick Keogh, managing director of Berryman, declined to reveal any more details of the plan at this stage.

He said: “We are starting to see growth in recycling rates within the areas we manage. As this process continues, more glass treatment capacity will be needed, and planning work is already underway on two further treatment plants.” These will be based at Rockware sites in Doncaster and Irvine.