GLASS bottle and jar recycling is to move from segregated to mixed glass recycling in the Highlands.
It comes thanks to a system from The Highland Council’s recycling contractor, Viridor. The firm operates a glass reycling facility at Newhouse in North Lanarkshire where the mixed glass will now be processed.
The plant accepts all coloured glass bottles and jars for processing through sorting the mixed glass back into their original colours and rejecting any contamination. The recycled material is then transformed into high quality finished products for the food, beverage and pharmaceuticals industries.
The council said the facility features some of the most advanced recycling technologies to be found in the world. It encompasses 15 “scientific eye” optical sorters, x-ray sorters, over 1/2km of conveyer belts and 2.5km of electrical cabling across 3 floors of processing towers.
Councillor Allan Henderson, chair of The Highland Council’s communities and place committee, said, “The Highland Council is fortunate to be able to send glass bottles and jars to this impressive facility, which removes the need for the public to colour segregate their glass. Mixed glass recycling is going to be of great benefit to the council and the public. It will be much quicker and easier to recycle glass and it will improve the efficiency of collecting the material meaning we will no longer see one bank full to overflowing and another next to it partly empty. We also hope to see a reduction in the public leaving bags of glass at the Recycling Points due to one particular colour bank being full.
“Glass can be endlessly recycled without any loss of quality – the true meaning of closed-loop recycling which supports the circular economy in Scotland. Last year around 6000 tonnes of glass bottles and jars were collected from the 200 Recycling Points in Highland and successfully recycled. We have an excellent track record in Highland with the public recycling their glass bottles and jars this new change can hopefully mean we can recycle even more.”
