Less than 50% of New Zealand recycled glass is used to manufacture new bottles, and increasing amounts are, on the other hand, sent to be crushed.
Figures from the Glass Packaging Forum demonstrate t…
Less than 50% of New Zealand recycled glass is used to manufacture new bottles, and increasing amounts are, on the other hand, sent to be crushed. Figures from the Glass Packaging Forum demonstrate that extra glass from recycling since 2004 is being sent to crushers to be turned into aggregate for building and roads, filtration systems and agricultural materials. In mid-2009, the country had already beaten a voluntary goal of 55% of glass recycled, reaching 64%, but continuously less is used to produce new bottles. Using recycled glass for new bottles is considered better than raw materials for the environment, since it uses less energy and fewer natural resources. According to John Webber, general manager of the Glass Packaging Forum, the industry started using glass for aggregate in 2005, when there was not enough demand for recycled glass. The public being as enthusiastic as it was, they were still recycling … [so] we started to look at alternative uses. Since 2005 the amount of glass becoming new containers had flattened out while, in 2004, almost all recycled glass became new glass containers, and now more than half is crushed. Webber added that a smelter glass furnace to be built by Owens-Illinois in 2010, and which will boost the country“s capacity to smelt glass from about 80,000 tonnes to about 155,000 tonnes a year, is expected to increase the amount of glass used for containers. Co-mingled recycling schemes had not helped, he added, and that a part of the glass coming from residential collections arrived at recycling facilities in too poor a condition to be used for new containers. However, according to Aaron Bhatnagar, chairman of Auckland city development committee, switching to the scheme had sparked a “dramatic“ increase in recycling of paper, plastics, metals and glass. An optical sorting plant is also being built by Owens-Illinois and recycling company Visy to try to increase the rate of glass recovery. However, the latest recycling rates, which mark the end of a five-year voluntary agreement under the Packaging Accord, do not take into consideration 13,000 tonnes of glass that is stockpiled at Visy, waiting to be processed, which would bring the recycling rate to 69%.