But the agreements have prompted concern with the glass sector over whether Valpak is simply diverting material destined for recycling in the container glass industry and that it will damage the idea of collecting glass by sorted colour.
Valpak is thought to be paying about 20 a tonne for the material to Camden and Westminster councils and in a statement issued this week said it had “ joined forces with the London Borough of Camden and Westminster City Council to launch a new glass kerbside collection service from residential and business areas in the boroughs.”
But, it is understood that Camden already has a contract with the British Glass Recycling Company. And, Camden already runs a kerbside collection contract to which it supplies glass collected at the via the United Glass reprocessing plant at Harlow.
Valpak has not disclosed how much extra material it will be raising through the Camden agreement althought it is thought that Camden is collecting more glass now than a year ago and so has a “surplus” which it can offer to Valpak.
Westminster is already a major collector and
supplies more cullet to the container glass industry than any other London Borough. The British Glass Report for September-December 2000 shows that of
all local authorities in the UK, only Bristol, Birmingham and Leeds collected more glass than Westminster. Valpak says that its support for the kerbside schemes means that excess green glass – which makes up about 50% of the bottles
collected at present – can now be put to good use, instead of ending up in “expensive landfill sites”. By taking control of the cullet Valpak can ensure that it is in control of a portion of the PRNs (packaging waste recovery ntoes) issued for the cullet.
Tom Fourcade, Supply Manager, Valpak, said: “Our support for the development of new uses for recycled glass, means that local authorities such as Camden and Westminster can be certain of finding a local market for the glass they collect. I emphasise that the new markets will supplement the traditional outlets for glass, not replace them – the poaching of material from one end use to another does not form
part of the initiative.”
However, one senior member of the glass recycling sector who declined to be named said: “Valpak is definitely writing to hotels and restaurants offering a free collection and will be taking glass out of the container sector.”
Neat solution
Charles Cronin, vice chairman of Westminster’s environment and leisure committee, said: “In Westminster more than 30,000 tonnes of glass (90 million bottles) are collected every year. That’s 12% of
our total 250,000 tonnes of waste. This recycling initiative is a neat solution to dealing with waste glass. It saves energy by displacing mining for aggregate, saves landfill space and saves time sorting coloured glass. Camden and Westminster have a winning partnership with Valpak to the benefit of both our
communities.”
Gerry Harrison, chair of streets and transport committee, London Borough of Camden said: “I'm
pleased we've found another way to recycle glass which presently takes up so much landfill space of which
the country is fast running out. The scheme's extremely cost effective too because the glass doesn't have to
be sorted by colour in order to be ground and blended for use in road surfaces as with other schemes.”
Register for free to comment