blue glass bottles

[burston]

Does anyone know which bottle bank blue glass bottles go into. I recently took a blue wine bottle along with others to the local tip and asked one of the workmen which one I should put it in. He looked at it puzzled, then chucked it on the soil and hardcore skip, smiled and said ` sorted`. He obviously didnt know himself. How ridiculous. surley it would have been better to put it into one of the bottle banks, even if the wrong one, than throw it in the skip.

[grasscarp]

with a bit of googling I found a recycling website which said that blue and multicoloured bottles should be put in the green bottle banks.

[New Judge]

Not that it makes much difference.

In the South of England one company has the contract with about 80% of local authorities for the disposal of glass from roadside bottle banks. If you watch, you will notice that this company routinely tips the contents of all three bins from a site into a single hopper on its wagon.

Why should this be so? Because there is currently too much �cullet� (broken glass for recycling) around. Despite glass being about the easiest and most cost-effective material to recycle the recycling companies deem it too expensive to sort and decontaminate broken bottles. There is simply too much debris amongst the glass (stoppers, corks, screwtops, labels, dog-ends, etc.) for them to be bothered. They only want clean cullet � such as offcuts from glaziers.

So where does all the glass that you so painstakingly sort end up? Where else but in land fill sites, of course. You will not read about this or find the statistics anywhere as, naturally, it is is open defiance of EC regulations. However, I have contacts in the glass industry and can assure you it is true.

It is just another example of the scandalous way that the gullible public are press ganged into complying with a scheme which, on the face of it makes pefect sense, but which is blatently abused when the material reaches the "wholesale" stage..

[squarebear]

That is appalling if it's true New Judge.

[grasscarp]

I also once read that they only bother recyling clear glass, though I dont know how true that is.

[hartley]

Apologies that this is moving away from the original question (grasscarp is correct), I could not ignore New Judge's post.

The fact that colour segregated glass recycling banks are emptied into a single vehicle absolutely does not mean that the glass is then sent to landfill. There could be a number of explanations.
- there is a strong market for mixed glass. If the merchant or reprocessor has a customer who requires mixed glass it would be pointless to collect material in a segregated vehicle. Mixed glass is often used as an aggregate in road construction and this application will also tolerate higer contamination levels than glass container production.

- the reprocessor may have optical sorting technology in their material recycling facility. Whilst not all facilities have such technology the bigger players in the recycled glass industry are installing automatic sorting at most MRFs. This will sort by colour and also reject most contaminants including Pyrex, pottery etc

The strongest argument that would suggest that New Judge (with all due respect m'lud) may be mistaken is that it would cost more to landfill glass than it would to recycle it. Last weeks prices show that a 'spot' gate fee at a landfill site was 27 pounds per tonne and landfill tax is now 32 pounds per tonne. It makes no financial sense to landill glass when it can be sold to a reprocessor for 31.20 pounds per tonne (clear glass) or 17.60 per tonne (mixed).

One should also note that a tightly regulated system of 'Packaging Recovery Notes' is used by reprocessors to evidence that material has been recycled. Any reputable reprocessor would routinely issue these to waste collection companies or local authorities. Of course there may be the odd 'cowboy' operation who will landfill recyclables but I doubt very much that any local authority would be dealing with them.

I suggest that if you have evidence of illegal

[hartley]

(sorry not realised how much I'd gone on!)
Should read;
I suggest that if you have evidence of illegal waste disposal practices you inform the Environment Agency (0800 807060)

[New Judge]

I'm sure all what you say is correct, hartley. The financial figures you quote certainly do stack up if the cullet can be sold. The truth is that much of it cannot.

However, I know that landfilling of glass goes on and I know who is doing it. However, I personally don't see too much to get excited about. There is nothing toxic about glass and I don't hold with the theory that the UK will run out of landfill sites any time soon. I'm not easily duped by the environmental scare stories that are put about mainly as an excuse to raid my wallet..

I just don't like being told what I must and must not do with my waste when (if you'll pardon the pun) I'm wasting my time.

[gucciman]

i used to work for a paint manufacturing firm and we were the first company in the world to get paint to successfully adhere to glass.
glass coating became a big market for us and the blue bottle you had is almost certainly a clear glass bottle with blue paint on it, therefore i would put it in the clear glass collection as if they did recycle them and melt them down then the blue paint would come off.

[burston]

Thank you to everyone for your replies. Most interesting comments. I rarely buy wine in blue glass but will think twice in future.
I sometimes wonder if all the effort we put into recycling is worth it.