At the Verallia plant“s “hot end“, glass making remains an industrial process, with towering steel furnaces, brick and oppressive heat, where raw materials are mixed, melted and dripped in glowing …
At the Verallia plant“s “hot end“, glass making remains an industrial process, with towering steel furnaces, brick and oppressive heat, where raw materials are mixed, melted and dripped in glowing globs into metal moulds. The “cold end“, however, has received a new system of conveyor belts on blue frames to carry cooled and coated wine bottles through state-of-the-art packaging equipment. Verallia, owned by French Saint-Gobain, has invested USD 20 million in the last 18 months to modernize its plant in South Seattle, which has been involved in the manufacture of glass containers since before the end of Prohibition in the early 20th century. Daily plant production is about 1 million bottles – 90% of which are wine bottles for winemakers in Washington, Oregon and British Columbia. The plant was founded by Northwestern Glass in 1931 and, over the years, it has had many different owners and produced many different types of glass food and beverage containers. Production of wine bottles began since 1995. The new mechanized package system was just one focus in Verallia“s plant modernization. The second, which involved improving the plant“s sustainability, regards the new partnership eCullet, which moved onto the site in early 2009, doubling the use of cullet, or crushed recycled glass. The cullet is hauled to Verallia“s plant and mixed with the raw materials of sand, soda ash and limestone, which results in 48% of the bottles produced at the plant being made from cullet; with year-end goal of 50%. Washington State“s number of wineries has doubled to 700 since 2005 despite the recession, with Washington in second place after California for wine production. Production [of wine] in the region is increasing; a lot of bright companies in the area are producing great wines, said Saint-Gobain CEO Jerome Fessard. We are keen on serving those people.