Republic of Ireland to send its glass over the border

Quinn Glass has agreed to take consumer glass collected by Rehab Recycling Partnership in the Republic of Ireland for a guaranteed period of three years. The deal was facilitated by the Irish Minister for the Environment Martin Cullen and Repak, the Irish packaging compliance scheme. The glass will be recycled back into new containers.

This agreement comes after last year's closure of Ardagh's Irish Glass recycling plant. This left the Republic of Ireland without any glass recycling facilities making it the only European Union member state unable to process its own collected glass.

Mr Cullen said: “The closure of the Irish Glass recycling plant in Ringsend last year –the only glass recycling plant in the country – represented a significant blow to recycling in Ireland and cast a doubt over the continued economic viability of glass recycling here. The reality facing us was that alternative cost-effective markets had to be sourced to ensure that the excellent progress made in relation to glass recycling in Ireland in recent years was sustained and could continue into the future.”

Guarantee
Rehab Recycling Partnership runs collection schemes for many Irish local authorities, owns 1,600 bring sites collecting different materials and works with drink manufacturers, hotels and pubs. The deal secures 105 jobs at Rehab Recycling, over half of which are for people with disabilities.

Mr Bob Rowat, general manager of Rehab Recycling Partnership, explained that the organisation has been dealing with Quinn recycling for three years but this agreement means the glass recycler has guaranteed that it will take all the glass from Rehab Recycling until 2006.

He said: “Without this contract we would be heading for an environmental catastrophe here due to the lack of viable markets for our waste glass.”

In 2002, Ireland collected over 60,000 tonnes of glass for reprocessing, which represents more than half the glass packaging put on the market. The packaging recycling industry is supported by Ireland's compliance scheme, Repak who in pledging its ongoing support to Rehab Recycling secured the deal with Quinn Glass.