UK glass collection levels low

The amount of glass cullet used by the UK glass container manufacturing industry remains "substantially below" the peak reached in 2006, according to the latest recycled glass Market Situation Report from Wrap.

The report, which examines developments in glass manufacturing, collection and cullet use up to June 2008, has found that the amount of recycled content in containers fell from 36% to 30% between 2005 and 2007 owing to a combination of increasing production and falling cullet use.

The most significant decline has been in green glass furnaces, which are currently operating with a cullet content of less than 70%, compared with around 85% in 2005.

In spite of this decline, around 1.5m tonnes of container glass were recycled in the 12 months to June 2008, a 200,000 tonne increase over the previous year. However, the majority of glass collected from households was absorbed by the aggregates industry.

The amount of glass recovered in the municipal waste stream rose by 30% in 2006/07 to almost 1.2m tonnes, driven by an increase in kerbside collections, which are operated by around 70% of local authorities.

Local authorities using co-mingled and mixed colour collections have become "more prevalent", according to the report, with around 30% of councils operating schemes.

The fact that more materials recovery facilities are able to take glass could lead to an increase in the number of local councils willing to set up co-mingled collections, says the report.

Revised packaging recovery targets announced by Defra in early 2008 mean that the amount of recovered glass volumes might need to reach 1.8m tonnes by 2010.

In the first half of 2008, cullet recovery was almost 15% higher than during the same period in 2007. Recovery for June to December will need to be almost 20% higher than 2007 if the 2008 target is to be met.