Councils failing to push glass recycling, survey warns

More than 40% of local authorities do not realise that 60% of the UK's glass must be recycled by the end of 2008, a survey by British Glass has revealed. And 59% are not planning to expand their glass collections within the next 12 months.

Worrying

Although councils are only obligated to meet their own mixed material recycling targets, as well as a national goal of 35% by 2015, director general of British Glass David Workman said the cooperation of local authorities was essential in order to meet national glass recycling targets. “These results are very worrying,” he said. “They show many councils are unaware of the need to expand glass collection, and that those who are aware are not planning to expand rapidly enough to meet the new targets.”

He added: “We need a more integrated and coordinated approach from all parties. For instance, local authorities and industry have been given totally different recycling targets and timescales, which reduce our ability to work together.”

Limit

In 2002, the glass packaging recycling rate was 34%, but DEFRA is now proposing a 2004 target of about 46% (see letsrecycle.com story).
The glass container re-melt industry has repeatedly said that it could accept much more recycled glass – the main limit to increasing glass recycling is the number and quality of collections, which are largely supervised by local authorities.

The survey was sent to local authority recycling officers at more than 600 councils in May 2003. It had a 42.6% response rate. It revealed that 37% of councils operate kerbside collections for glass, and another 21% plan to introduce such a scheme. Of these two groups, 53% were in favour of collected colour-separated glass, which can be used for higher-quality applications than mixed.

However, only 18% of councils run commercial glass collections, and just 5% intend to start these up. The research also revealed officers consider closed-loop container manufacture to be the best use of recycled glass, but the number considering aggregates as an end market is set to increase.