GLASS FEATURE
no-deal Brexit looming on the horizon, so everyone is going to be feeling the pinch financially. So these things could add up to people switching to plastic instead of glass and cans, which we feel isn’t what the scheme was designed to achieve.
It would be particularly catastrophic to incentivise people away from glass because we already have a rather good recycling rate for it – roughly 70% in the UK in general. If you look at Wales in particular – the third best country for recycling rates in the world – they already recycle 87.3% of their packaging glass, and that is from kerbside collections. Alongside other European countries, our target is to achieve 90% by 2030 and Wales is a good demonstration that this is entirely possible.
You mentioned the COVID situation; what are the effects the glass recycling is feeling at the moment?
At the beginning, as an industry we were very concerned. We were seeing more and more news authorities reducing or halting their kerbside collections, which was a real worry. Of course, the shutdown of the hospitality industry meant the stream of cullet from drinks bottles from bars, pubs and clubs disappeared overnight. It meant there was less glass being recycled and then the industry would be more reliant on virgin raw materials and the import of
materials.
But although that did have an impact, what actually became clear is that people have still been buying their beers and their wine - we all need to cope with lockdown somehow. We have just been staying in to consume it. It’s difficult to get figures on that just now, but we have talked to recyclers and reprocessors and they say the volume of kerbside glass has increased quite significantly.
However, the increase in volume from the kerbside hasn’t made up the shortfall.
So overall there is a drop of glass being recycled and cullet available.
But talking to our members in the last few days, I think they don’t see it as too much of a concern now. Things seem to already be as bad as they’re likely to get and we’ll now be seeing a slow return to normal. So - fingers crossed - things will pick up and continue to improve.
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