Ardagh signs 15-year deal with Reuse for glass recycling

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Glass manufacturer Ardagh has signed a 15-year deal with West Yorkshire-based Reuse to increase glass recycling.

Ardagh has three glass manufacturing plants in Yorkshire that supply the world’s leading food and drinks companies, and this partnership will see Reuse provide recycled cullet to the plants.

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Reuse is a division of privately owned Australian recycling and waste management company United Resource Management that also has three plants in Yorkshire.

The first action of the partnership is a £5 million investment in state of the art sorting and separation technology to get a ‘pure’ cullet that has enabled Ardagh to increase the recycled content of the glass bottles and jars that it produces by 12 per cent.

Ardagh Glass head of marketing Sharon Crayton said: “We have been producing green bottles that contain over 90 per cent recycled glass for many years, but high recycling levels for clear (flint) glass have previously posed a challenge due to difficulties in colour separating clear glass back to a pure enough colour at the required quality specifications.

“This new technology has put us at the forefront of UK recycling, helping us to significantly increase the recycled content for flint bottles and jars. For example, our Doncaster plant which is focused solely on the production of flint glass achieved an average recycled content level of over 50 per cent in the first quarter of 2014 against an average recycling rate of 32 per cent in the same quarter of 2013.

“Glass packaging is already a very successful environmental story as bottles can be recycled over and over again, without limit and without losing any of its quality as the most natural and healthy packaging medium. The partnership we are announcing enables us to make even more use of the glass that is recycled in homes and businesses throughout Yorkshire and the north of England, helping us to provide our customers with products that meet the very highest recycling levels.”