More than 300 pubs, clubs and hotels have signed up for daily collections by Raw Glass Recycling, which began last month.
Unlike the Recycle More Glass national collection scheme, which was recently passed from Valpak to Berryman, Raw Glass will concentrate its efforts in one region. The company has received some capital funding from United Glass and private investors, but will make money by selling materials to reprocessors.
Raw Glass owner Andrew Wong said the service was already generating 30 tonnes a day, and within a year it hopes to be bringing in over 100 tonnes a day. The glass is collected mixed along with aluminium cans discarded from bars. These are hand sorted at the company's transfer station in Bulphan, near Thurrock in Essex.
Mr Wong said the glass would go to United Glass, and the company was looking into sending its aluminium to Alcan. He added that once the business was running smoothly, another transfer station would be opened near Slough and another eight vehicles added to the current fleet of three.
Mr Wong said the idea for the new company came because he was also the director of Pitsea-based Smart Direct, which supplies a range of services to other companies, from waste management to car leasing. He said: “We subcontracted all the waste to national waste companies, but we were finding the majority of companies we were picking up from tended to be in the leisure industry. The majority of their waste was glass and aluminium.”
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