Orora’s new Glass Beneficiation Plant is located adjacent to the company’s state-of-the-art glass facility in Gawler, South Australia.
What is Glass Beneficiation?
The process of beneficiation involves removing impurities from used or broken glass through crushing, cleaning, and sorting to deliver crushed contaminant-free glass – known as “cullet” – ready to contribute to making new recycled glass products.
Through container deposit schemes, Orora’s Glass Beneficiation Plant processes the used glass to create cullet, which is then transferred to the Orora Gawler glass plant to be put through the furnaces and created into new glass containers.
The beneficiation process involves removing contaminants from the glass. This includes any residual aluminium caps or closures, which may remain on the bottles. These are separated from the bottles in the beneficiation process and are then bundled up and sent off for recycling separately.
Orora’s Glass Beneficiation Plant allows us to process up to 150,000 tonnes of glass each year – which is equivalent to approximately 330 million wine bottles or 750 million beer bottles.