In Glasgow, 200 licensed premises are taking part, in partnership with Glasgow City Council. In Edinburgh, Alloa Community Enterprises is collecting from 150 premises.
In contrast to the situation in England and Wales where the recycle-more glass schemes does send some cullet for use by container manufacturers, none of the Scottish glass will be redirected back into the industry. Instead, the cullet will go to RMC Aggregates and be used as a replacement for sand in road building.
A spokeswoman for recycle-more-glass said: “We do send glass to the container industry in England and Wales, but only when they have colour separation equipment.”
Recycle-more-glass has brought 14,000 premises in England and Wales into the scheme since it was launched in July 2001. In its first year, the service collected 30,000 tonnes of mixed coloured glass bottles.
Enthusiastic
Duncan Simpson, materials director of the project, speaking at the launch last Friday, said: “We are delighted to be expanding to Scotland and we are extremely enthusiastic about working with the many Scottish premises who want to do their bit for the environment.
The scheme, which provides Valpak with access to PRNs – packaging waste recovery notes – will collect from any business that produces a “large amount” of waste glass containers. It provides bins and regular collections to pubs, clubs, restaurants, hotels, company canteens and even music festivals.
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